By John Rogan, Tillamook
In the past one of the constant themes of the Republican Party was that Democrats were burdening our children with an enormous national debt. The refrain went something like ‘what we spend on ourselves today they will have to pay for tomorrow’. However now that they are in power they are expanding the national debt at an alarming rate. One factor driving this increase is the tax cut that basically benefited the very rich. As Trump boasted to his billionaire backers at Mar-a-Lago, “I have just made you very rich.”
Republicans seem to realize that expanding the national debt cannot continue at the current rate, and their answer to this situation is becoming clear – slash Medicare and Social Security. The Republican strategy is to label Medicare and Social Security as ‘undeserved entitlements’, ignoring the fact the we have paid for them during our entire working lives. Clearly the ones who are going to end up paying for the tax cuts to the super rich are you and I.
The Republicans are in a bind of their own making. They have positioned themselves as the party of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and yet they have now taken the national debt to new heights. On the other hand they cannot afford to ignore the demands of their billionaire backers which include the enactment of even more tax cuts. The only remaining option for them is to take away the earned benefits of the middle and working classes.
It is clear that in 2019 Republicans, if they are still in power, will make major changes and cuts to Medicare and Social Security and at the same time enact yet another tax break for the super rich. If you value Medicare and Social Security use your vote to save these programs.