Show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value

Yep, Republicans sure do hate the poors...and "woke"....and children

It’s fine…everything’’s fine….

The one clear difference between the Left and the Right lies in their respective worldviews. The Right sees a world of danger, where crime is rising rapidly, placing our wives and children in ever-increasing peril. Meanwhile, the Left resides in a more fact- and data-based world where crime has verifiably decreased, life is improving, and the positive far outweighs the negative.

A good example of the stark difference between the two sides is Donald Trump's inauguration speech on January 20, 2017, which was notable for his “American Carnage” theme. In that speech, the new President painted a dark and frightening picture of an America on the brink of collapse, one that he would fix with swift, decisive, and, if necessary, harsh action.

Many of us who listened to that speech looked askance at one another, wondering where this crumbling shit-hole country was he spoke of. It was nothing like the America those of us on the Left knew. Still, for those on the Right steeped in Trump’s dark brand of grievance politics, America WAS a shit-hole that had long ago tracked far off course…for good, God-fearing, White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual American Patriots like them.

When Joe Biden became President, one of the things he said was, “Show me a budget, and I’ll show you what you value.” If you look at the budgets he’s submitted to Congress, it’s easy to see what he values. He’s long talked about building America from the bottom up and from the middle class out.

His budgets have been big on very “un-sexy” items like infrastructure, which desperately needs attention. This country has a plethora of bridges, roads, sewers, airports, and other projects that need to be built, rebuilt, modernized, and/or updated. Our rail infrastructure lags behind virtually every other developed nation. Our ability to connect all parts of the country with high-speed internet service is, in a word, abysmal.

All of those are things that Joe Biden’s budgets have sought to address. His budgets aren’t perfect, of course. There’s still far too much money going to our military, but that’s a long-term effort. The money being directed to domestic projects is as impressive as it is desperately needed.

Of course, the budgets proposed by Congressional Republicans reflect a much different set of values, what they refer to as “fiscal sanity.” Sadly, their budgets also betray a serious disdain—nay, outright hatred—for the poor and those in need of a helping hand.

In what one would assume must have been part of a celebration for Opposite Day or perhaps National Irony Day (just kidding, that’s not until October), the House Republicans’ Republican Study Committee dropped its 2025 budget proposal this week, titled “Fiscal Sanity to Save America.” (The 2024 budget is still happening now, today, and may get House Speaker Mike Johnson shitcanned, for a change. Who can ever say?)

As to the 2025 budget proposal, there is … a lot that is bad here. In fact, it is 180 pages of bad — much of it focused on eliminating funding for, well, pretty much everything except the military. Okay, it actually does eliminate some funding for the military, but only as it concerns things like diversity and abortion and, of course, critical race theory.

Oh! And it also eliminates some funding for protection from terrorism, on the grounds that it is used against domestic right-wing extremist groups if they do terrorism.

The Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program was created to provide funding for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments; nonprofits; and institutions of higher education with funds to establish or enhance capabilities to prevent targeted violence and terrorism. However, under the Biden administration grants have been awarded in recent years to fight domestic extremism—particularly “right wing extremism.” The FY 2023 Omnibus provided $20 million to this program. The House-passed FY 24 Homeland Security appropriations bill defunded this program. The RSC Budget would also eliminate this program.

Why would Republicans want to defund the TVTP Grant Program? Could it be because domestic extremism is almost exclusively of the Far-Right variety and Republicans believe that such violence and terrorism could accrue to their benefit? Yes, I’ll grant you that’s a cynical viewpoint, but what other explanation makes sense?

Are Republicans seriously arguing that because such groups call the Far-Right home, they, by definition, can’t be called terrorists? Therefore, the TVTP Grant Program would qualify as a violation of their 1st Amendment rights.

Yes, it’s entirely possible they could be, and are, just that cynical.

There have been far more domestic right-wing extremist terrorist attacks since 9/11 than any other form of terrorism (although there has been a rise in left-wing attacks as of the last report, meaning there are now some). I’m sorry if this hurts the feelings of Republicans, but perhaps we wouldn’t have to spend $20 million on this program if they would stop riling their base up with blatantly racist nonsense like the Great Replacement or, godforbid, consider some light gun control.

Some might say the “fiscally sane” thing to do would be to pay attention to the groups most likely to actually harm someone instead of, say, drag queens reading story books, but those people would never vote Republican to begin with.

Of course, one shouldn’t underestimate the threat Republicans see in “woke.” “Woke” what, you might ask? Well, everything you could possibly imagine might be a target for “woke indoctrination,” which is something that could corrupt an entire generation of our young ‘uns.

What is “woke,” you might reasonably inquire? How about we begin with a definition so we’re all singing from the same hymnal:

By the above definition, then, being “woke” more or less means not being a self-centered racist or misogynist asshole…which would seem like a good thing, yeah?

So why are Republicans arguing for Americans to adopt a “Fuck you; I got mine, you get your own” ethos, which runs counter to almost everything this country stands for?

Because Republicans know that if they can destroy our sense of community, if they can set us one against the other, and if they can propagandize into fearing EVERYTHING, they’ll win.

This is why they hate programs that help children, the poor, or any demographic in need of help.

There are pages and pages in the Republican Study Committee’s proposed budget about how they are upset about “woke indoctrination.” Like, the word “woke” is in there 37 times. “Children” are only mentioned one more time than that, just to give you an idea of where their priorities are.

Most of those mentions pop up in a section in which they whine about how not enough people are getting married. This, of course, leads up to their desired cuts to social welfare programs, as well as work requirements to participate in those programs.

You know what else they’re going after? School lunch! And this time it’s not that they want to classify ketchup as a vegetable. They’re going after universal lunch programs.

The RSC Budget would also institute reforms to school lunch subsidies to ensure that they go to needy families by eliminating the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) from the School Lunch Program. CEP allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.

If there’s one thing that’s been proven an iron-clad truth about education, it’s that children don’t learn on an empty stomach. This is why universal free school lunches have been so successful. When children’s stomachs aren’t growling, they can learn.

That’s not a net cost to society; it’s an investment in our future. The cost of school lunches is a pittance compared to the more than $2 billion that passes through the Pentagon's front door each day. Investing in our children is never a bad idea…yet Republicans too often fail to see the basic common sense in this program.

Universal school lunch has been a huge success — both when it was implemented nationwide during COVID times, and in states that decided to continue providing them afterwards. Since the US stopped providing universal school lunch, lunch participation rates have gone down by 6 percent, which means that a whole lot of kids are going without.

You will notice that they left out the fact that only the poorest schools in the nation get subsidized lunches through CEP. Part of the reason for this is that it means those families don’t have to file paperwork to qualify, which means that the state doesn’t have to pay people to go through the paperwork and ensure that they qualify. That kind of administrative work costs time and money … which could just as easily be spent on school lunches.

They are also concerned about another problem very easily solved by universal school lunches:

Additionally, the RSC Budget would limit spending in the program to truly needy households. Further, the “school lunch and breakfast programs are subject to widespread fraud and abuse.” The lunch and breakfast programs made $5.718 billion and $2.609 billion ($8.327 billion total) in improper payments, respectively, from FY2016-FY 2023. States, in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, must take steps to address this problem.

How do you sit there and write about “fraud” in the school lunch program without making yourself physically ill? Really! Because that is “fraud” that simply takes the form of “children eating.”

OK, so if “fraud” means a few “ineligible” children eat lunch or breakfast when they “shouldn’t” be…well, BFD. “Children eating” doesn’t seem like it should be anyone’s idea of the “crime of the century,” knowhutimean?

Then again, Republicans are terrified of “fraud,” so much so that

[a]t least half of this budget, in fact, is dedicated to “preventing fraud” in social welfare programs. Truly, if poor people were half as good at fraud as Republicans seem to think they are, they would all be running Fortune 500 companies by now.

Or they’d be the frontrunner in the Republican primary.

Or are they only worried about fraud when they can lay it at the feet of Democrats? Why is half of the GOP budget dedicated to preventing fraud? Are their programs so poorly and inefficiently designed that they must have someone on the back end making sure to keep leakage at a minimum? Couldn’t they have put together a framework for systems that are more resistant to fraud? Or are they just that inept and incompetent?

So, if you believe, as I do, that budgets are great indicators of what a party (and/or a President) values, the two budgets I’ve discussed here are notable studies in contrast.

President Biden is looking to build, rebuild, and create things to make the lives of Americans better. By building and rebuilding bridges, roads, sewers, high-speed internet, and other infrastructure projects, it will be easier for Americans to get from place to place, communicate, and do business faster and more efficiently.

Conversely, the GOP budget appears to be based on the belief that the American people are looking for “something for nothing” and are lazy, shiftless good-for-nothings who can’t even properly care for their children. Republicans are OK with terrorism as long as attacks committed by Right-wing extremist groups break to their advantage.

That’s not “fiscal sanity;” that’s not having any belief or trust in your fellow Americans. It’s fearing that no matter what you do, everyone is out to game the system. And it’s knowing on some level that you have nothing positive to offer America save for a lust for power and the desire to be the ones in control.

How sad and pathetic is that?

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