Independent Newsmedia
By Greg Cravens | Peoria
Upon reading the current iteration of Donald Trump’s budget bill, I am struck by the multitude of outrageously cruel proposals it contains.
How can the greatest country this world has ever known pass a law that strips health care from nearly 12 million of our most vulnerable people (according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office)?
This will ultimately lead to the closure of rural hospitals in underserved areas that desperately need them. When people lose access to regular, preventative health care, they simply stop going to the doctor or clinic as often as they should. This leads to a spike in emergency room visits. Combined with fewer hospitals and clinics, the system begins to fail.
Food aid — SNAP, formerly known as food stamps — is also on the chopping block. According to USDA data, 13.5% of U.S. households were “food insecure” at some point in 2023. That translates to roughly 18 million Americans. Food banks across the country are warning they simply cannot make up the cuts being proposed to SNAP.
Trump’s budget plan has completely decimated USAID, a humanitarian program that has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for over 63 years, sending food, medicine and manpower to regions that desperately need it. We spend a fraction on foreign aid compared to how much we would have to spend militarily to achieve similar goals.
As then-Gen. James Mattis told Congress in 2013: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition…” A few of these benefits include the fact that smallpox has been defeated; polio eliminated in all but two countries; deaths from malaria cut in half from 2000 to 2017, and the U.S. PEPFAR program has saved 17 million lives from HIV/AIDS and enabled 2.4 million babies to be born HIV-free, according to the Brookings Institute.
America, what are we doing? Aren’t we better than this? What has gone so wrong with so many people that empathy and compassion are now seen as weaknesses by the current Republican Party?
To paraphrase the famous saying by Pastor Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Medicaid, and I did not speak out, because I was not on Medicaid. Then they came for the SNAP benefits, and I did not speak out, because I did not receive SNAP benefits. Then they came for the foreign aid, and I did not speak out, because I did not receive foreign aid. Then they came for my education, but there was nobody left to speak out for me.”
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