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Looking back

Dear Edtor,

So, looking back at his first 104 days in office (this letter is being written on 5/4/17), how have President Trump and his administration been doing in terms of “making America great again” and standing up for the working class Americans he promised to champion? Let’s take a look…

First, they continue in their efforts to quickly “repeal and replace Obamacare,” and to try to rush their plan through (which they may finally succeed in passing in the House today) without its specifics being fully known and their likely impact/costs evaluated – and the unanticipated “ripple effects” throughout the entire health care system could be quite grim for many working class Americans.

For example, just on the basis of what we do know about it, this GOP plan would at minimum result in approximately 24 million Americans losing their health care insurance, allow states to remove protections for those with pre-existing conditions (which is approximately 50% of the population, and over 80% of those aged 50 and older), and eliminate coverage for many basic (often referred to as “essential”) medical services. So, on this “National Day of Prayer,” the GOP is attempting to make health care for this nation’s citizens whom they supposedly represent less accessible and more expensive, while exempting themselves from the potentially devastating consequences of their own efforts? Certainly the mix of irony and obvious hypocrisy here is rather stunning.

Secondly, after successfully getting numerous ultra-rich former Goldman-Sachs executives and other billionaires appointed to various cabinet positions, they are now proposing tax cuts which would greatly benefit corporations and the ultra-wealthy (including Mr. Trump and his family) while blowing a huge hole in the national debt, rationalizing this once again with the old and now thoroughly disproven promise that the resulting financial benefits would eventually “trickle down” to working class Americans. Apparently they do this while working on the assumption that no one will realize until it’s too late that efforts needed to address this now vastly increased national debt at some point would undoubtedly involve cuts in services which benefit working class Americans.

In conjunction with this, efforts at financial deregulation are underway which would further empower these corporations and wealthiest individuals, thus laying the groundwork for yet another huge “crash” like the one marking the end of the previous Republican administration 8 years back after such measures had been implemented.

And, of course, the GOP continues in its relentless efforts to undermine Medicare and Social Security, despite Mr. Trump’s promise that he would “not change” and would actually “save and protect” these programs which are vital for so many Americans.

Not very reassuring so far, at least to me – and these are just a few of the many worrisome issues plaguing these early days of this administration. Let’s all keep a very close eye on how things go from here.

Dale Buonocore,

Warren

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