In 2017 Trump and the Republicans spent $1.9 TRILLION to give mostly billionaires and corporations tax cuts.

AT THE SAME TIME Republicans claimed there was just no money to continue the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for 8.9 million disabled and sick children’s health care.

• This would have taken children off cancer treatment if Democrats didn’t use the government shutdown of January 2018 to force CHIP funding for 6 more years.
• In the 2017 tax cut, Republicans spent $5 BILLION MORE than the cost of CHIP just doubling the inheritance tax cutoff so that the children of married couples with estates worth up to $23.4 million would pay NO inheritance tax.
• Previously, only the children of couples with estates of up to $11 million didn’t pay any inheritance tax.
• That wasn’t good enough for the Republican Big Money Politicians.  And it was more important than health care for sick and disabled children, even those with cancer!

Trump’s tax cuts did nothing for our economy.  Instead, it just skyrocketed our national debt.  According to the Center for American Progress, if we had put the $1.9 Trillion to better use, we could have done all these things and more:

• eliminated child poverty
• doubled funding for climate science
• given everyone affordable child care and pre-K
• given every teacher in high-poverty schools a $10,000 per year raise
• given everyone free community college

19 Republican governors allied with the Koch network refused tens of millions of dollars in federal money to expand Medicaid.

• This resulted in about 19,000 more deaths each year, while people in these states paid federal taxes that supported the Medicaid expansion.
• It also cost these states an extra $1 billion for treating uninsured people in hospitals and meant the loss of many new jobs.
• Fortunately, now 9 of those states have come to their senses and expanded Medicaid, saving both money and lives.

Big Money Politicians have been cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, education, welfare, and social services for decades in order to give the superrich ever more tax breaks.

Bill Clinton was the first major Big Money Democrat to copy Republicans and use policies hurting regular Americans to suck up the gravy train of massive campaign contributions from greedy billionaires.

• He vowed to “end welfare as we know it” and declared “the era of big government is over.”
• He cut welfare by $55 billion, set a lifetime limit of 5 years on benefits, required everyone receiving benefits to start working after 2 years, and changed it from a federal program to state-controlled block grants.
• This was a disaster.
• States diverted much of the money to other purposes.  And with no adjustment for inflation, the block grants have lost 40% of their value.
• Now only 22% of welfare money nationwide goes to basic assistance for poor families with children.
• States often use the money for promoting work or marriage, preventing pregnancy, abstinence-only sex education, pre-K and Head Start, after-school programs, mental health, domestic violence, tax credits, college financial aid or scholarships and childcare subsidies.
• States can even use the money on Christian summer camps!
• At least 10 states divert tens of millions of dollars of welfare funds to anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers that pressure and deceive desperate women and often lie to make abortions sound dangerous!
• These anti-abortion centers rarely provide any prenatal or medical care besides unnecessary ultrasounds and perhaps testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
• These anti-abortion centers may pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries to their CEOs.  Sometimes they even move the welfare money to their centers in other states!
• Some states spend the federal welfare money on college financial aid or scholarships for families making 3 or 3 ½ times the poverty cutoff.
• Nearly 1/3 of states spend welfare money on childcare subsidies for families making over twice the poverty cutoff.
• Before Clinton’s reform, welfare covered 68% of families in poverty. Now it only covers 21% of them.
• Before Clinton’s reform, from the Great Depression in the 1930s until the 1990s, welfare spent almost all its money on poor people.  
• Now 15 states spend less than 10% of the money on basic assistance to poor families with children.

Mostly Republican billionaire puppet politicians have claimed for decades they want to “save,” “fix,” “improve” or “modernize” government programs like Medicare and Social Security.

• They claim these programs are broke, going bankrupt, fatally flawed, or doomed to death spirals.
• Turning them into block grants for the states lets states steal the money for other purposes.
• Billionaires really want to privatize government programs like Medicare, Social Security, health care, education and the US Post Office, so they can buy stock in the companies running the programs and suck out profits.
• Their puppets in Congress claim privatizing the services would improve them and everyone would get cash vouchers to use.
• But it would really mean people would get a small check.
• Next, the government might as well say “You’re on your own, sucker! Go try to find a good health insurance plan, a good retirement plan, a cheap mail service, etc.”