July 3, 2025: Disaster

 

Congress passed the Big Beautiful Bill today, even though most Americans oppose the bill as written. President Trump will sign it into law tomorrow and make a big show of his victory. But the BBB is, in fact, a disaster for America.

Let us be blunt. The Republican agenda is intended to further divide the rich from the rest of us because they themselves are rich or want to be.

Welcome to feudal America.

The Big Beautiful Bill is a betrayal of the general American population. Its effects will be far-reaching. Just one is the removal of incentives to use solar power. 280,000 Americans are employed by the solar power industry. Trump wants to promote fossil fuel and coal instead of, not in addition to, solar power. The future of the planet, and of our descendants, lies in the balance. He does not see the future moving away from fossil fuels. He would see the solar industry die in the bargain. What a way to help American business!

We have already seen the Trump administration push back against any effort to tell the true history of the United States. We have already seen them threaten anyone who might disagree with their view of the world. Now, with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, we will see this adminsitration throw more and more people into poverty or near-poverty. We are already morally bankrupt. To help the poor old rich, we are going to face fiscal bankruptcy in the near future. And America will slip out of greatness.

We are traveling backward in time. Human rights belong only to white males of property descended from northern European immigrants, those brave risk-taking ancestors who crossed the Atlantic looking for a better life and then brought slaves to do the work and pushed indigenous people into tiny corners of the land. We want those times back. Women didn't vote. Slaves counted as 3/5 of a human only for census purposes. It was a great time to be rich and white and male. That was the Great America Trump wants back.

But wait. I'm a white male of northern European descent. Am I speaking against my own interests? No. Emphatically, no! I see taking help services away from people in need, both here and abroad, as a betrayal of our supposed Christian values. I see white-washing our history and pushing back to the times of Andrew Jackson as a sin. If you want to make America great, you help others. You learn from your mistakes, not ignore them. Anything less is indoctrination to the whims of one person, and that will lead to a whole new generation of Brown Shirts.

July 1, 2025: Davey Crockett Says

 

“Whenever I had anything and saw a fellow being suffering, I was more anxious to relieve him than to benefit myself. And this is one of the true secrets of my being a poor man to this day.”

                                        -----Davey Crockett

Today, the United States Senate passed Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill on a split vote, with Vice President J. D. Vance casting the deciding vote. Cudos to the three Republican Senators, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who voted against. This cumbersome bill designed to help the rich get richer now goes back to the House of Representatives, but it is doubtful enough Republicans care about their constituents to block it from becoming law.

The greatest redistribution of wealth in history has been occuring here in America over the decades since Ronald Reagan first took office in 1981. The disparity is remarkable. The top one percent control over 30% of the wealth. The bottom 50 percent control just 2.6% of the wealth in our country. It's only getting worse. The new tax cut extensions outlined in the BBB will give someone earning five million dollars a year a tax cut equalling the living wage estimate for four families of four. Trump's BBB will make certain the super rich get richer and richer, and so will Trump in the bargain, at our expense. If you voted Republican thinking you would slide up the scale, you were lied to and tricked. They are greasing the pole from the top in Washington, and I fear not enough Congressmen will remember the words to live by, spoken 200 years ago by Davey Crockett: “Be always sure you are right – then go ahead.”

A vote for the Big Beautiful Bill is not only wrong, it is immoral. Worse, it is amoral. Abandoning those in need is certainly not what I consider Christian or American. In Washington, it is only two things: convenient and cowardly. Davey Crockett said, “I would rather be beaten, and be a man, than be elected and be a little puppy dog.”