The Republican push to cut taxes massively to serve the interests of the rich and to make serfs of the rest of us greatly serves the interests of one president. He is President Vladimir Putin, and these are his tax cuts.
Beyond dispute, Putin ordered a campaign of disruption of the American electoral system. The media have not been entirely correct to say that his goal was to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump because Putin probably did not believe that would happen. His goal simply was and is to disrupt and to weaken America, his greatest adversary.
A recently published blockbuster, “Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win” by Luke Harding, longtime Moscow correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, sets forth a compelling case that Russia has played Trump for its own interests starting as early as the 1980s. Back then, Harding writes, the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, was working to draw “prominent figures in the West” into collaboration. A form the KGB used for evaluating targets asked, “Are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition or vanity among subject’s natural characteristics?”
Harding presents overwhelming evidence of a web of relationships between the Kremlin, Trump and members of Trump’s circle. The financial ties between Russians and Trump will prove to be astounding, to say nothing of the information the Russians may have about his conduct in Russia. It is time, says New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, for this country “to come to terms with substantial evidence that the president is in thrall to a foreign power.”
What is Putin’s goal? To weaken our country. He is succeeding brilliantly.
Putin’s stooge in the White House has divided us by race, religion and ethnicity; he has demonized the press and other truth tellers; he has devastated our diplomatic leadership in the world; he is destroying our trade relationships around the globe; and he has weakened NATO and our other military alliances. There also, of course, is the constant lying about almost everything. Putin could not have done this on his own. Trump is his indispensable tool.
And now the Republican enablers in Congress are going to give Putin the biggest gift of all – massive tax cuts of $1.5 trillion that will shift wealth further toward the already rich and reduce the revenue of the federal government to the point that we only will have money to pay interest on the national debt and to underfund our military. Forget education, environmental protection, and public health. We will have enough money to wage nuclear war on North Korea but not enough money to clean up the mess these two psychopaths – Trump and Kim Jung Un – will create.
The Republican-only tax bill, in its present form, also will put the hurt on state governments to make up for federal cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and other governmental programs that separate the low middle-income groups from third-world poverty.
Republicans are so hell-bent to give their donor class this tax cut that they will not reign in the Putin stooge who is dismantling our democratic system. The media keep us hoping that there are a few patriots in the Republican Party to stop this madness. Imagine what patriots Republicans would be if these things were occurring with a Clinton or Obama in the White House. But, sadly, today we have only partisans, not patriots.
The Democrats thus far have been feckless and paralyzed. There is one effective Democrat who knows the truth about all of this but he has been strangely quiet for the most part. President Obama, you knew the Russians were hacking our 2016 election and you did not speak up. You probably did not think Trump would win. But you and we now know how severely Putin’s stooge is damaging our country.
It is time, Mr. Obama, for you to speak up. Yours is a voice that commands attention greater than any other Democratic leader. We cannot wait for the next leader to come along – we need someone to speak now and to encourage the next generation that may be able to save our country.
In the past, Mr. Obama, you have brilliantly spoken truth to power. You now may be out of governmental power, but we hope you are not out of truth. It is time again for you to speak against this existential threat to the rule of law and our democracy.
