We've talked before about how the Big Beautiful Wealth Transfer to the Rich bill is great for the megawealthy and bad for ordinary Americans who have to worry about paying rent, putting food on the table, and whether they can afford to go to the doctor. We already have a colossal gap between the very richest and an ever shrinking middle class and a struggling working class. The BBB is going to make the gap even wider.

“No funds appropriated herein may be used to pay, support, or reimburse, either directly or indirectly, Stephen Miller, or to support any activity or program that Stephen Miller directs, consults, or advises, without the prior authorization of Congress.” Every appropriation must originate in the House of Representatives. Under the Constitution, neither the Senate nor the White House can make funds available for any purpose; the Constitution gives that power solely to the House.

We’ve talked about the impact the $1 trillion cut to Medicaid will have on working class and poor families in Western NC and on rural healthcare. Well, hold onto your MAGA hat and your Trump bible, according to Senator Ron Johnson, more cuts are coming.

politico.com/live-updates/2… Johnson says the Trump White House and Republican Party leaders assured him that if he’d go along with the Big Bad Wealth Transfer to the Rich Bill they’d support consideration of another bill later this year to totally eliminate Medicaid expansion and cut an additional …

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers:

“The cruelty of these cuts is matched only by their stupidity. Medicaid beneficiaries will lose, but so will the rest of us. The cost of care that is no longer reimbursed by Medicaid will instead be borne by hospitals and passed … … onto paying patients, only at higher levels, because delayed treatment is more expensive. When rural hospitals close, everyone nearby loses. Hospitals like the one where my daughters practice can no longer accept emergencies by air because those beds are occupied by …

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (better known as FICA) is a 7.65% tax on earnings that fund Social Security and Medicare. You may have read recently that the Social Security Trust Fund is being depleted faster than previously estimated … … and payments to Social Security recipients will have to be reduced in a few years unless something is done to shore up Social Security.

Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, died over the weekend. A passage from his obituary and 2 charts from today’s papers illustrate the fallacy of Republican Party economics.

From Fred Smith’s obituary: “The Times reported that, thanks to the corporate tax cuts Mr. Trump signed into law, which FedEx had lobbied for, the company’s tax bill plunged to zero, from $1.5 billion. Mr. Smith had said that businesses like FedEx would respond to the windfall …”

As another Republican administration sends America into a war in the Middle East and as Republican legislators look for deeper social program cuts to add to the Big Bad Wealth Transfer to the Rich Bill, let’s examine a couple of budget matters. Trump proposed a military budget that for the first time exceeds $1 trillion. Despite years and years of spending more on our military than Russia, China, and Iran combined, we’re warned year after year that we’ve got to keep spending more in order to keep up with our enemies.

“It’s a reflection of a severe worker shortage in national parks, which have been under budget and understaffed for years, that has been made worse by cuts to the federal workforce by Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.” “The NPS has lost 13% of its 20,000strong workforce since Trump took office in January, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a watchdog-advocacy group, which attributes much of the drop to job eliminations and staff taking buyouts offered by DOGE.”

My wife is a volunteer at a local foodbank and works in their Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) program. She helps prepare boxes of healthy food for delivery to low income people suffering from chronic illnesses. Western NC is 1 of 3 regions in the state in the HOP program. It’s been especially helpful in the wake of Hurricane Helene. HOP was approved during the first Trump administration and started up in 2022. The cost of the program is split between the federal and state governments.

3 things to highlight.

First, there’s an article in the NY Times on how Trump and his comrades — including Chuck Edwards — are using their favorite strategy that I’ve labeled MSU (Making Shit Up) to deceive Americans about their Big Beautiful Wealth Transfer to the Rich Bill. Take Chuck’s recent propaganda screed … sorry, newsletter … for example. Chuck says “This is not a ‘tax cuts for the rich’ bill - it’s a ‘tax cuts for hardworking Americans’ bill.”

To describe that in a word … bullshit.

Excerpts from today’s New York Times on the budget blueprint the Trump White House released last night:

“Mr. Trump also targeted the nutritional program for women, infants and children, which helped about 6.7 million poorer recipients last year afford food.” “His budget proposed to roll back a policy that had increased the benefits low-income families receive for fruits and vegetables under the program.“

“The pardon recipients confirmed by the official all had felony convictions, like Trump …”

The Felon-in-Chief continues dishing out favors to his fellow felons. In an act of stereotypical Republican hypocrisy, Trump is deporting alleged gang members who aren’t gang members to foreign hell hole prisons — and assailing the courts for blocking him from getting gang members off our streets — while commuting the 6 life sentences …

In the wake of Hurricane Helene, the Biden administration made the Emergency Prescription Assistance Program available to hurricane victims in Western North Carolina who don’t have healthcare coverage. More than 800 WNC residents are getting their prescriptions filled by EPAP. The Trump administration is terminating the program at the end of the week. Their advice to those getting kicked out of the program is to “apply for coverage through NC Medicaid.”

Our region sustained an estimated $60 billion in damage from Hurricane Helene. Eight months later, the Republican controlled legislature in Raleigh and the Republican controlled federal government have provided less than one-tenth of that amount to help WNC get back on its feet. Well, so far Trump — with Chuck Edwards’ support — has halted $10 billion in disaster relief funds intended to help people across the country, cut off housing assistance for thousands of Hurricane Helene survivors, and ended fully reimbursing North Carolina for debris removal.

Senator Susan Collins: “The House instruction on $880 billion troubles me greatly, because I believe it inevitably would lead to significant cuts in Medicaid, which would be very harmful to people in Maine and to our rural hospitals and other health care providers. . . . . . I am not going to support cuts that affect low-income families, disabled individuals, low-income seniors, rural hospitals.”

In 1982, economist John Kenneth Galbraith published an article in the New York Review saying that the Republican theory of “trickle-down” economics was better described as “horse-and-sparrow” economics: If you provide a horse with all the oats he can eat … … some of what goes in the horse’s front-end will come out the horse’s rear-end and plop on the road for the poor sparrows to pick at.

The @washingtonpost pointed out the lies President-Elect Musk has spread about the bipartisan funding bill he killed. Here are a few. “Musk on Wednesday … recirculated a claim on X that the legislation included $3 billion for a new NFL stadium in the District. The provision, however, included no new federal funding — it even specifically banned the use of federal funds for a new stadium.”

I’m not surprised by the conduct of @60Minutes. When I resigned at GTMO Chief Prosecutor, they asked for an exclusive and I spent a day with Morley Safer in my house. The piece was set to air and then the Pentagon asked for a chance to respond. The response interview with … … a 1-star did not go well, so the Pentagon traded the video of Omar Khadr making bombs (which was classified) in return for 60 Minutes shelving the piece on my resignation. Back then, a 60 Minute piece could have made a difference. Instead, it’s 16 years later and GTMO …