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| This is how too many Americans fear they may end up. (Photo by The New York Crank) |
Ask Donald Trump how America is doing and he’ll break his own arm patting himself on the back.
“We’ve probably had the great first two years of any President in our history in terms of what we’ve accomplished with employment, with GDP, with every thing,” he said back in February.
In short, according to President Trump, you’re in great shape. You’re in fabulous shape. You’re in the best shape in history. You're wallowing in riches. You’ve never had it so good, and neither did your father and mother, or your grandfather and grandmother.
Which raises a few questions.
If the economy is doing so great, how come your kid has to go deep into debt to get a college education? This is a situation that didn't exist during most of the 20th Century.
If the economy is doing so great, how come so many people are cutting their pills in half, or even skipping doses, in order to be able to pay for some of their medications?
If the economy is doing so great, how come the Republican party is talking about a nine year plan to balance the budget — by cutting your Medicare and Medicaid? And don’t be surprised if Social Security is next. That nine year plan ought to do wonders for the sale of cat food, to hungry senior citizens who don't own cats.
If the economy is doing so great, how come so many public schools are so lousy, and so bereft of Federal aid that underpaid teachers have to use their own hard-earned money to buy school supplies for their classes?
If the economy is doing so great, how come the so-called Trump tax cut had to eliminate your100 percent deduction on state and local property taxes and income taxes — a double whammy that took money out of one of your pockets, even as it pretended to put money in the other?
If the economy’s doing so great, how come our roads are pitted and potholed, our bridges creaky and rusting, our infant mortality rate higher than those of Canada, of Switzerland, of the UK, of the Netherlands, of France, of Australia, of Belgium, of Germany, of Sweden, of Japan?
Yes, we have full employment. But instead of the $40 and $60-per-hour jobs of yesteryear, millions of Americans instead are working at McJobs — minimum wage jobs, or slightly above. Many work two or even three jobs just to make ends meet. Even the so-called elite white collar folks are working longer hours than ever, harder than ever, for the privilege of paying more rent than ever or paying higher prices than ever for their homes.
All Americans should be making the money they need to work decent hours at just one job, and to buy a home, put their kids through school, take a nice vacation every year, and go to sleep at night knowing that there’s money to pay the doctor and the hospital if they’re sick, and to retire in reasonable comfort in their old age. That's the way it used to be in the 1950s, the 1960s, even the 1970s. That's most definitely not the way it is in Donald Trump's America, where four out of ten Americans don't even have enough saved to cover a $400 emergency.
Donald Trump has made big, loud promises about making America great again. It hasn’t happened and it will never happen under his corrupt administration. He talks a good line. But the only people for whom America is really growing greater are the Trumps and their friends.
However, to concede a point, Donald Trump has achieved a kind of greatness.
He is turning out to be the greatest con man who ever lived.
