We must start winning the wars, said President Trump rumbling victory drums.
And you’re right, Mr. President, we must start winning the wars, make America Great again. But the enemy is not outside the borders, Mr. President, the enemy is inside, and it is crouching, expanding like cancer, advancing throughout our states, and if we do not fight and win that internal war, it threatens with destroying us.
My problem with your position, Mr. President, is that you are targeting an enemy that you see beyond the national borders, and are aiming with bombs, ships, airplanes. My problem is
that you intend to increase the military budget by 10% ($54,000,000,000 bringing it to a total of $574 billion) and at the same time, you lower the budget for Education, student loans, science and medical research (– 14% leaving it at $50,000,000,000); the protection of the environment (– 31% leaving it at $5.7 billion), welfare programs (– 17%), and that you also announce a drastic cut to Medicaid (– 800 billion in ten years). My problem is that you have mistaken the enemy and the war, Mr. President.
Our war is not beyond our borders, our war is here, and it covers many fronts, fronts that weaken us and endanger the greatness of America.
One of those fronts is the war against a prevailing outrageous inequality that hurts and shames and makes the charity exerted by the rich philanthropists to denigrate those who receive it.
True, it makes your millionaire friends, or foes, feel less guilty, Mr. President. I have billions, they say, but I spend some of my money to help the dispossessed, the hungry, those who do not dare to look in the eyes of their children instead of keeping everything for myself, what an extraordinary human being I am!
By cutting the subsidy to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which last year benefited 46 million of the Great America —15% of the population—you are condemning to perpetual poverty those who are already looking for food on the brink of being dumped for useless on the shelves of shame of the supermarkets.
Another war is against a poor-quality education or an education so expensive that is reserved for an elite, while ignorance is reserved to the majority so that they do not think, so that they do not seek other ways out. And the enemy advances, corrodes, and even fosters crazy adventures; it allows, for example, that ignorance govern us, that the lack of logic govern us, that the empty phrase becomes law in this, our Great America.
And in this war, Mr. President, you aim to destroy the temples of knowledge, to limit the thought, and the repercussions begin to glimpse at colleges and universities around. Philosophy? Useless, and those programs or merge with others or disappear, echo some college administrators. And that’s just the beginning. By cutting an already meager budget for Education you, Mr. President, are destroying the future of American Greatness.
Your budget was defined by your Office of Management and Budget Director as an intentionally “hard power budget”, “not a soft power budget.” “The President very clearly wants to send a message to our allies and our potential adversaries that this is a strong power administration,” he added.
Right, Mr. President, you pulled out your mask. Your budget is a hard budget at the service of the powerful, a budget against the poor, against the middle class, against immigrants, an immoral budget, an inhumane budget, a budget that offends dignity. A budget that leads to frustration and frustration can be a breeding ground for terrorism, adventurism, and this one is indeed a true enemy.
“We look at this budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the bills,” continued your Budget Director. This time it’s not about thinking from the point of view of the needy, about “compassion,” as he called it. And in a common maneuver, so typical of yours, Mr. President, you lead us to identify ourselves with the powerful, because of course, we all pay taxes and nobody wants to be called needy. And shame embarrasses our children and the shame reflected in the eyes of our children makes our soul ache and at the same time makes the rage grow.
And the inner enemy keeps advancing to transform Your Great America, Mr. President, in Our America.
We do not want to pay for your war spending. Defense and National Security consume 618 billion of the national budget. We want those funds to be used in the fight against the scourges of hunger, poor health care, poor-quality education, discrimination, and environmental destruction.
We do not want the meager sums that the powerful devote to charity are deducted from their taxes so to encourage them to do more charity since it is more convenient for them for things to stay calm so that nothing changes.
No! We do not want charity; we want dignity, work, rights, we want a budget to end all those scourges and enjoy our right to live in peace.
And Russians or no Russians, you’re losing the war, Mr. President.