Tag Archives: DACA

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, budget, Congress, deficit, donald trump, medicaid, taxes

THE PRESIDENT OF CHAOS

The picture on my computer screen should be better so I tried adjusting it.  That made it worse so I’ll hit it with a sledgehammer and see if that helps.  Unfortunately, that foolish approach is being applied by President Trump to vital national interests like health care,  defense,  immigration, and budgets.

One of Trump’s competitors, Jeb Bush predicted the problem back in 2015 saying,  “Donald, you know, is great at the one-liners.  But he’s a chaos candidate.  And he’d be a chaos president.  He would not be the commander-in-chief we need to keep our country safe.”

Never a dull moment...
Never a dull moment…

President Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with something better: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody…There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”…“I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid”.

As President, Trump never proposed a way to provide health care regardless of Americans’ ability to pay for it and he did support cutting Medicaid.  Obamacare has insured about 20 million Americans who had no benefits before the law passed; and at the same time it has slowed the growth of the nation’s healthcare spending.  It’s a success but it needs improvement.  When nothing that he or other Republicans proposed passed, Trump swung his sledgehammer at Obamacare’s most vulnerable spot, the individual markets.  He announced termination of the federal  subsidy to insurance companies for low-income subscribers.  That will damage the already fragile individual insurance markets in some communities – breaking our healthcare system without a plan to replace it.

Trump threatens to withdraw from our agreement with Iran, under which they shut down their nuclear weapons program and gave up 98 percent of their nuclear materials.  The agreement was designed with one goal in mind – don’t let Iran develop  nuclear weapons.  We managed to get Russia, all of Europe and China on the same page because they all agreed with that goal; and it was our combined power that made the deal possible.  Trump can’t persuade Iran to do other things that he wants so out comes the sledgehammer to break the Iran agreement.  If the deal falls apart and if China, Russia and Europe go their own ways, there will be nothing to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  By destroying the Iran deal without a plan to replace it Trump also tells other nations  that any President can ignore commitments made by his predecessors.  The USA will be seen as untrustworthy.

The DACA program for children brought to the US illegally is an imperfect solution to a problem that congress has been unwilling to address.  Trump promises to hit it with his sledgehammer – forcing law enforcement to round-up and deport children and young adults who have lived most of their lives as Americans.  Again, he has no plan for replacing what he will destroy.  Many young adults will be driven to hide in an underground economy where they have little opportunity for success.  That’s a breeding ground for dissension, hopelessness and crime.

Trump plans to hit your wallet with a sledgehammer too – by cutting taxes, mostly for the wealthy, while increasing military spending and  our national debt at even faster rates than his predecessors.  Americans will have to repay that debt at some future date.  Our ability to borrow money for a true catastrophe or war is already impaired because so much of our debt capacity has been used.  We currently owe $20 trillion.  That is about $62,000 for every American or $161,600 for every American who works at a full or part-time job.

Donald Trump again proposes the sledgehammer approach saying,  “I am the king of debt,”…”I love debt. I love playing with it.”  and “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal”…”And if the economy was good, it was good. So therefore, you can’t lose.”  When he says “make a deal”, that means refusing to pay our debt, most of which is owed to Americans.  It’s not the same as letting one of his casinos go bankrupt.

If the Republican congress allows President Trump to deliver more sledgehammer blows to our nation, the resulting chaos will belong personally to Donald Trump and each legislator who supported him.  The GOP will own the chaos but the American people (including DACA kids) will pay a heavy price for it.

All Posts, immigration

Adiós mis amigos

3 Comments

The title of this column is borrowed from Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee” about undocumented Mexican laborers. Thirty-two people died in 1948 when a U.S. Immigration Service plane carrying them from California to Mexico crashed.  News accounts listed the names of the four person flight crew but just described the other 28 as “deportees”.  That disrespect inspired Guthrie’s song.

President Trump has decided to end President Obama’s DACA policy that allowed children brought to the US illegally to remain here as non-citizens.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it clear that unless congress passes a law protecting them, the USA will arrest and deport these young people who have been here for most of their lives.

Some of your neighbors and classmates have no idea what comes next for them.  Without a revised immigration law they will be deported, but to where?  The nations from which their parents emigrated may have no records of their existence. They may not have citizenship rights anywhere.  They will be sent to places where they have no job and no means of support.  Their education has been in English and they are culturally American.  Amidst such uncertainty, one thing they will know is that the role of law enforcement is to deport them.  There will be no trust.

Sessions explained that he and President Trump are just doing their jobs.  He is correct that President Trump has the authority to rescind the executive order that created DACA and that we are a nation of laws; where the role of the executive branch is to enforce the law, not to make it or judge it.

Mark Twain said that “A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.”   The justification offered by Sessions and Trump is a half-truth that ignores the role of American government and business in allowing and encouraging illegal immigration.  That half of the truth has continued unabated since long before Guthrie wrote his song.

I’ve seen truckloads of migrant workers traveling to and from fields where they harvested our fruits and vegetables; and I knew that many of them were here illegally.  I’ve known some of the farmers who built simple housing where migrants lived until the harvest was complete.  That’s still going on from California to North Carolina.  I’ve seen thousands of immigrants working in textile, furniture, and other manufacturing plants.  I’ve toured construction sites where you needed to know Spanish in order to understand the conversation among people doing demolition, hanging drywall and painting.  I’ve also seen that among those who earn a living in landscaping, golf course maintenance, roofing, cooking, hotel housekeeping…the list goes on. You’ve seen it too.  But have you ever heard of law enforcement raiding a giant chicken processing plant, farm or business and arresting the executives who employed undocumented workers?  Neither have I.

I knew that many of those workers were here illegally and I knew that they brought their children along.  I saw them in my local schools, where some of them graduated with high honors.  Some have given their lives in our armed forces.  You’ve seen the same things and you know what I know – that American employers sought out immigrants as a source of inexpensive labor.  We also know that law enforcement looked the other way while business profits soared, due in large part to immigrant labor.

We all know that some laws have been unjust and immoral; and that some businesses won’t let legalities or morality stand between them and profits.  That’s the same now as it was in the 1940s. Today, the children of immigrants are settling in and succeeding as Americans.  The second half of the truth is that laws which force them to leave their homes, communities and families are immoral and unjust laws.

The laws and enforcement policies of the 1940s were about using cheap, mobile labor until it was no longer useful and then deporting the workers.  That was wrong then and it’s wrong now, even if deportation is legal.  It’s time to respect the people who have done some of our least rewarding work and their children by providing a pathway to full citizenship.  They have earned the rights that the rest of us received at birth.

Listen to Woody’s song at the link above. Think about it. Speak up.  And sing along.