There is no attempt to stem the bleeding

As America bleeds out economically, it appears mitigation has been defunded.

After a few days of screaming into the void on Gaza, I’m today returning home to the chaos that is a President out of control. I have long really struggled with the state of public indifference when it comes to Gaza as the analytics for those posts show. That will remain with me to my dying days. As they say, ‘You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my inability to articulate the tragedy? For anyone who might want to read my thoughts, Here are the links to PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

Moving on, This is the first in a series of posts examining the truth of what hard working Americans will face imminently and why. We’ve reached the point now where the child did something wrong and his parents are about to find out. If America thought it had a system of effective checks and balances in place to protect it from a president who would upend the good intent of the founding fathers, think again. A significant proportion of the population is like a longsuffering abused spouse, who continually wanders around with makeup covering bruises and struggles to find excuses for a split lip. No matter how much the abuser hurts and humiliates them they find an excuse for his abhorrent behavior.

The Republicans have long held themselves up to be the party of low taxes, yet here we are with Americans paying the highest collective tax rates in recent memory. To be very clear TARIFFS ARE A TAX. Just as Clinton said ‘I did not have sex with that woman’, Republicans are saying we are not increasing taxes. Nobody is really buying it, yet they just seem to let it slide with a wry smile and a slight shake of the head. The truth of the matter is, the government as it stands is simply not fit for purpose and is causing damage that in some cases will take decades to recover from.

The founding fathers specifically handed the power of the purse to Congress as a collective body to weigh the merits of critical government actions, specifically as it relates to spending for the benefit of the people. The foundational principles within the Declaration of Independence are clear

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The people have no alternative but to depend on the government they elect, to step aside where appropriate and allow them to lawfully attempt to prosper by building a life for them and their family. This is the very definition of the American dream. Equally, it’s not unreasonable to expect the government to be there to provide a safety net should they hit a bump in the road that leads to them not being able to feed themselves and their family. That is how a humane society is supposed to operate.

Let’s break down how the constitution envisioned the mechanism for government to best serve the people when it comes to government spending.

— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 7, clause 1

“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”

— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 7

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”

By way of summary this is taken from the archives of the US House of Representatives.

‘Since 1789, Congress has been endowed with one of the government’s most important responsibilities: that of raising and spending public money. The Framers who devised the Constitution required that all revenue policies begin in the House of Representatives, the chamber which has always been directly elected by the American people. Since the earliest Congresses, the House Committee on Ways and Means has set tariff and, later, tax rates to maintain the public treasury. As the size and complexity of the federal government grew, the House created the Committee on Appropriations in 1865 to handle all spending matters, and the Budget Committee later in the twentieth century to coordinate America’s finances.’

If you would like a more in depth read on the subject, click here to look at the origins of the ability to raise taxes as set out in the constitution.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS - THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE?

For any government to do its job, legislation MUST be at the heart of its obligations to meet the needs of the people. The reason America finds itself in the position it is, results from power and control, taking priority over the needs of the population. When it comes to that power, it is all too often at any cost. Time and again, we see that for any individual with malign intent, legislation is an impediment on the march towards autocracy. It’s time consuming and difficult to control the outcome, given it involves consensus to arrive at an end result. This is EXACTLY as intended by the framers of the constitution. Governments should govern by consent, but Trump has other ideas.

The intent of executive orders was never to circumvent the legislative process. They are to help refine the administration and implementation of the laws created and should be complementary. They should bring added value to the practical application of legislation and reform. The increasing thirst for power by Republican Party is born of one single word, INTERPRETATION. At the core of their ambition for absolute authority, is the bastardisation of the rules. Their interpretation of the Constitution is at the heart of it, no more evident than their reading of the second amendment. Never has a political party twisted and bent the constitution to meet their political objectives more than the GOP. Just as they strive to use voter suppression to pick their voters, they interpret the constitution to pick their laws.

Regardless, all roads lead back to money. The SCOTUS Citizens United ruling was the moment in which the dogs of political war were unleashed against representative democracy in America. As ever, the big losers are the people for whom laws should be created to protect, while encourage increasing prosperity.

If as a President, you are seeking obscene private wealth from the kickbacks of asset stripping America and stealing the prosperity acquired by the middle and working class, you have limited time to achieve it, unless you can change the Constitution. Midterm elections are your enemy, along with the press and the rule of law. Be in absolutely no doubt, Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. He sees it as a ‘smash and grab’ opportunity for a fiscal street mugging. If it succeeds, he believes he can find a way to seize absolute control of the government. He sees executive orders as a tool he can use to expedite the power grab and the system appears to be ill equipped to limit his march to authoritarian rule. The judicial branch is barely holding on against a full on assault on their designed role to limit and prevent executive overreach.

The Heritage Foundation and it’s partners see Trump as their ‘deal with the devil moment’. He’s the only useful idiot that can help them achieve what for them must be a Christian Nationalist state. They are happy to massage his ego and tolerate his imbecilic behavior, because theirs is a religious crusade designed to install ‘their brand of religion’ at the heart of government. Theirs is the white man’s Sharia law government, where the top 1% make the rules for everyone to follow, but not them. There is no question, white Christian fundamentalism in America would make Islamic fundamentalism seem like little league. Be mindful also, their ambition reaches way beyond the borders of America. Theirs is a global mission.

The puppet master at the heart of Trump’s current coup is Russell Vought. He is the unapologetic Christian nationalist head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and was central to the Project 2025 blueprint. This is the man behind a decades long ambition to reimagine American society. His team is the source of the daily proclamations by Trump to dismantle the government. He has long been the mastermind behind the ‘legislation shops’ that have drafted hard right legislation for Republican state trifectas, to rubber stamp fascist laws. His work and the work of teams under his guidance, led directly to the overturning of Roe v Wade and attacks on voter and LGBTQ rights legislation.

This is a man who wants federal workers to be and I quote, ‘in trauma’. He is the Josef Mengele of the Trump administration and the constitution is the child he is conducting experiments on. He understands the power of the executive order and above all, its power to disrupt and that is the primary intent of this blizzard of executive action. He knows these orders can be overturned by any of the following (courtesy of the ACLU)

• Congress can enact a law that reverses what the president has done, provided Congress has the constitutional authority to legislate on the issue

• A court can hold that an executive order is unlawful if it violates the Constitution or a federal statute

• Any future president can issue a new executive order that rescinds or amends the earlier executive order

However, the structural damage they can impose while action is taken to rescind them, can take years to unravel and that is the sole intent for their use. It plays into Trump’s ego of being the king delivering daily proclamations. They get him the attention he so craves, while providing distractions and the elicitation of outrage. This leaves the opposition not knowing what to take a swing at and what to leave. They are the perfect tool for a man with a plan. My friends, this is a war that goes way beyond anything anyone has ever experienced before. It explodes the usual rules of engagement and has truly released the fiscal lunatics from the asylum.

The alliance between the religious evangelical right and the oligarchy is a deadly combination. It is an alliance of mutual dependency designed to keep Americans in their place and in a constant state of fear and uncertainty. Trump was not joking on the campaign trail when he said, “Don’t worry about having to vote again..”, he meant it. Elections are an impediment to the rich who have a wider ambition to crash the global economy, redefine American power to subjugate the rest of the world.

Tomorrow we will take a look at the next phase, the impact of dark money and how this fuels the endgame for this hostile takeover of America.