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When you see a sign that says “Free Beer Tomorrow,” you get the joke, right? Free beer sounds awesome, but tomorrow never comes. And that is Republican fiscal policy in a nutshell.
The Republican Party, right now, claims that their latest budget bill will lower taxes and reduce spending to deliver a bright future for all Americans.
Lower whose taxes? The wealthiest Americans.
Reduce what spending? Medicaid, SNAP, and Medicare. In rural Maine, people will lose coverage, and schools and hospitals will struggle and may close.
Bright future when? Even after decimating our services to offset billionaire tax cuts, this budget still explodes the deficit by $3.8 trillion.
I see no overall economic benefit to this budget bill. I see only the biggest wealth transfer to the richest Americans in this nation’s history. And the same old Republican promise that, if we will only let rich people get rich enough, we will all benefit, somehow, someday.
Trickle-down economics. Short-term pain, long-term gain. Free Beer Tomorrow.
Republicans have been selling this same empty promise for my entire life, over 40 years. That is a very long con. Yes, the rich have gotten astronomically richer. It’s definitely a bright future for them.
But for the rest of us, it’s time to stop buying. We’ve all been paying into Free Beer Tomorrow for way too long. It’s time to stop empowering Republicans whose agenda always seems to be to make the rich even richer. It’s time for the rich to pick up the tab.
Sydney Michalski
Columbia
