Holy Budget, Batman!
What In Tarnation is Going On
I assume y’all read about the latest budget proposal that passed in the House the other day. How did it make you feel? Hopeful? Some are still touting victory and cheering for the party of thieves currently in office, but more and more people are having a rude awakening. Wait a minute, they’re starting to say.
This can’t be good.
So, as if slashing Medicaid to the bone isn’t bad enough, the debt ceiling was still raised by four trillion dollars while the rich get massive tax breaks. You can’t make this stuff up.
It’s a dark comedy of Emmy merit.
Once I allowed the news to settle, swirled it around a bit, and spit it out, I slowly began to make some sense of it all. Yes, there’s a partial explanation for how we let this happen to us. Trust me, we really do invite some pretty dire consequences for our actions.
Before the last election, I read several articles where Republicans were floating the idea of Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare cuts. The blowback about Social Security cuts was instantaneous. Not that it won’t be put on the chopping block eventually, but nobody was going to get elected pushing that idea.
They’d just have to put it on the back burner and let it percolate for a while longer.
Medicaid was a horse of a different color, however. This was something Republicans might just be able to use. After all, lots of people on both sides of the fence have misgivings about Medicaid, particularly the middle class.
The poor need Medicaid, but they don’t really contribute that much in the way of taxes, so who cares what they think.
The middle class, however, often express mistrust, skepticism, and even resentment about free money in the hands of the poor. The rich are getting tax cuts, so there’s nothing to work with there. The middle class is the true “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” crowd. It’s hard for them to support one another, however. Unlike the rich, who stick together to reap the benefits for their class of Americans, the middle class competes with one another. You’d never find a rich person betraying other rich people.
They belong to a club that carefully navigates the world to their own advantage.
They have buildings named after them at top universities where their children get to attend without qualifications. They tell the middle class that they might want to reconsider sending their kids to college. Who really even needs a college education except them and their offspring? Then, and only then, are they proud of the top Ivy League universities they’ve attended for several generations. The rich stick together and it pays off in spades.
But the middle class is a different story.
They will turn on one another at the drop of a hat. They’re competing in hopes of one day becoming rich. They won’t hold the door open for each other willingly and cheerfully. They resent the poor getting free money, even if the poor are truly desperate. Oh, eventually, they’ll grab the goose by the neck if dear old Mom or Dad end up in a nursing home. Medicaid becomes their only choice then, but generally, they question the worth of safety net programs until they need one.
The Republicans knew that Medicaid would be the easiest program to sabotage.
They understood that the American middle class base has many members who resent free lunches and healthcare. After all, Medicaid wasn’t intended to be a lifelong job. Get off your lazy asses and work. Even though there are many who literally can’t work, like dear old Mom, they are livid if even one person sneaks under the radar.
Yet, it’s crickets when the rich get subsidized with massive amounts of taxpayer dollars or when corporations get bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars.
Oh yes, the Republicans knew that if they were going to make cuts, it had to be Medicaid. That would be their trial run. They’d see how far they could go before the middle class rebelled. Would it be when they had to bring dear old Dad home to live with them, or would it be when the home down the street for mentally challenged Americans had to shut its doors? Maybe it would be when they cut free lunch programs from public schools?
And once they do this test run, tweak the budget to appease a few more middle class folks, they’ll actively start tearing down yet another part of American life that provides a measure of stability. Then they’ll go after Social Security and Medicare. After all, they’ve told us what they planned to do.
We just refused to believe them.
And, no, not every middle-class person is resentful of the poor getting free money. There are some who understand that these safety nets in an advanced society serve a purpose worth protecting. After all, we’re all just a stone’s throw away from losing everything.
Tomorrow, it really could be us.
But there’s a middle-class culture that is tough and lacks compassion. They will circle around the drain and dare that poor guy down the street — who struggles to even qualify for most jobs — to work the system in order to eat next week.
“We worked for everything we have, and so should you,” they tell him.
All of this while the rich hand their kids the keys to the kingdom after sending their money to offshore accounts. They are rarely held responsible for their actions because they are the top tier in our American class system and thus live by a different set of rules entirely. And the middle class lets them. Is it hopeless? Maybe.
At the very least, we’ll need to feel the repercussions of this holy budget before we truly object.
In the meantime, the politicians who the rich bought with lots of cash will cut Medicaid with the pretense of wanting to get rid of government waste and debt. Somehow, they’ll convince a fair share of the middle class that they’ve accomplished this goal, even as they raise the debt ceiling by over four trillion dollars.
I repeat. You can’t make this stuff up.
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
