Billionaires are not doing you any favors

Fellow citizens, the shield of billionaires surrounding our president is not doing you any favor by dismantling the programs that have been built over the last 100 years. They are wringing their hands and licking their chops in delight. All the money that will not be spent on these programs can now be diverted into tax breaks for these ultra-rich folks. They have been working on this for years. All they had to do was encourage you to believe that these departments are filled with crooks, non-performers, criminals and radical leftists, and convince you that the programs are wasteful and filled with fraud. They did that, and now many people cheer that the programs are being destroyed.

These programs aren’t evil. They were put in place so most of us will have health care, a minimum wage, a 40 hour work week, a high school education, a safe workplace, roads to drive on, and be able to worship as we please. All it took was a few lies begun in whispers, and then picked up and shrilly repeated by the media for enough of us to believe the lies and think that this wholesale assault against our valuable institutions is a good thing. It is a horrible thing for you.

The idea that tax breaks for the rich yield jobs for those less fortunate has been around since President Reagan, who called it “trickle down” economics. At the time, respectable economists called it “voodoo economics.” It has been proven over and over again for 40 years that giving the very wealthy tax breaks does not create jobs, and the reason is simple. The rich already have all the mansions, summer homes, yachts, heliports, private jets and islands they need, so when they get tax savings they just pocket it and add it to their offshore accounts. They don’t create jobs.

What they will do instead, and are doing right now, is use DOGE to dismantle critical departments to remove expensive constraints on them operating their businesses. These include Medicare and Medicaid, who support our ill and seniors; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, protecting us from high credit card interest and payday loans; the Department of Defense which keeps our country safe; the Department of Education, providing our children with a free education; the Federal Aviation Administration, keeping air travel way safer than car travel; the Federal Emergency Management Agency, springing into action to soften the blow of the increasing numbers of natural disasters; the Internal Revenue Service, ensuring tax earners pay their fair share; the National Institutes of Health, making sure health care gets better and better; the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, watching those incoming storms and warning you about them; and finally the Treasury Department, which manages our debt and the health of our currency. And this is just the beginning.

Go back and look at this laundry list of important agencies and ask yourself, “how is my life going to be improved if these agencies are gutted or dismantled?” It isn’t.

People, when you see billionaires clamoring to hamstring important regulatory agencies, do you suppose it is for your benefit, or to benefit them and the industries they control? The answer is obvious. Follow the money. Don’t be a sap!

Let them know you want them to knock it off!

Dave Eiffert, Snoqualmie