If Donald Trump becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, he will be the first convicted rapist in US history to be a major party presidential candidate. While the rest of the world is focused on Trump’s various other indictments, nothing more completely illustrates the breakdown of morality and the degradation of women among today’s Republicans than his post conviction Republican presidential frontrunner status .

Republicans try to diminish the verdict

E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist, wrote in a magazine article that Trump raped her in 1995 or 1996 in a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. She claimed Trump pushed her against the wall in the store’s dressing room, pulled down her tights and forcibly penetrated her with his fingers and then his penis. Trump claimed (while president) that he never met Carroll and couldn’t have raped her because she wasn’t his type.

In 2019, New York passed the Adult Survivor’s Act which allowed adult survivors of sexual assault to file a civil suit against predators. Carroll was one of over 3,700 women using the law to sue their attackers.

Trump was required to give a sworn deposition before the trial. Shown the above photo of Trump and Carroll, Trump repeatedly argued that Carroll was actually his long-time mistress and second wife Marla Maples. The picture and Trump’s misidentification of Carroll as his former wife destroyed Trump’s defense that he never met Carroll and she wasn’t his type.

At the trial,  Carroll described the attack to the jury. Trump’s lawyer spent two days trying to pick apart her testimony about the rape. This was a classic example of rape trials where the victim winds up being put on trial.

Using a tactic in trials of other sexual predators, Carroll’s lawyers had two other women give sworn testimony about also being sexually assaulted by Trump. (There is a support group formed by two dozen women who have been sexually assaulted by Trump.)

Carroll’s lawyers also played the famous Hollywood Access tape Trump, made shortly after marrying Melania Trump. On the recording, about another woman, Trump stated, “I moved on her actually, she was down in Palm Beach and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try to fuck her, she was married … and I moved on her very heavily,”

Trump seems to have a fetish about sexually assaulting women in stores.

“I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture and I told her ‘I’ll show you where you can get some nice furniture.’ I moved on her like a bitch, and I could not get there, and she was married. And all the sudden I see her and she’s got the big phony tits, she’s totally changed her look.”

Trump continued, “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.”

The nine-person jury of Trump’s peers took less than three hours to unanimously find Trump guilty of sexual abuse, defamation and ordered that he pay her $5 million in damages.

After the verdict, Trump continued defaming Carroll, claiming the jury didn’t find him guilty of rape. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, wrote that the trial evidence showed that Trump did rape Carroll, “in the plain sense of the word”.

Trump appealed the jury verdict and the appeal was denied. The judge validated Trump’s conviction and the $5 million in damages. In a trial scheduled to begin on January 15, 2024, the judge will decide additional damages owed Carroll by Trump. These are for multiple defamations before and after those decided in the jury trial.

Trump and Republicans want to blame all of Trump’s legal problems on the “deep state”, the weaponization of the FBI and President Joe Biden. I can guarantee, the FBI didn’t push E. Jean Carroll against a wall in a department store dressing room. And, Joe Biden didn’t guide Trump’s hand and penis into Carroll’s vagina.

Besides the two dozen women who claimed Trump sexually assaulted them, Trump’s late first wife Ivana, also charged him with marital rape along with cruel  and inhuman treatment in her divorce filing. (Ivana was the mother of three of Trump’s children.)

A pattern of Republican approval of rape

At Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist at Palo Alto University in northern California told the Senate Judiciary Committee about the terror she felt on a summer day more than 30 years ago, when a drunken young Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, tried to rip off her clothes and clapped his hand over her mouth to muffle her cries for help.

Kavanaugh’s unhinged, rambling denials didn’t elicit a hint of credibility. All we learned from his crying was that he liked to drink beer. For any reasonably neutral person, it was easy to determine Ford was telling the truth and Kavanaugh was lying.

Republican senators, who controlled the Judiciary Committee, could have sought out the truth by subpoenaing Mark Judge to testify under oath. Judge was the third person in the room during the assault who pulled Kavanaugh off Ford. Unfortunately, Republicans were more interested in getting their prize confirmed than in the truth. Consequently, they chose not to subpoena Judge or to act on Ford’s sworn testimony.

After Kavanaugh’s disjointed testimony, Republicans confirmed his nomination. In a highly unusual procedure, he was sworn in two hours later. This prevented anyone from charging Kavanaugh with perjury due to his testimony.

Like Trump, Kavanaugh’s sexual assaults were not a one-off happening. The New York Times interviewed three other women who credibly accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault or misconduct.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-accusers-women.html#:~:text=Three%20women%20have%20publicly%20accused,before%20the%20Senate%20Judiciary%20Committee.

In addition, the regular FBI tip line recorded over 4,500 reports of sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. Rather than investigate them, the FBI sent the most relevant tips to White House lawyers, where the list died. This was example of the politicization of the FBI during the Trump Administration. Rather than seeking out the truth about Kavanaugh, the FBI sought to advance the president’s interest (making sure Kavanaugh became a Supreme Court justice).

What I’ve learned…

What struck me as I watched Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony on tv and read the transcripts of E. Jean Carroll’s testimony, both women remembered every detail of the attacks that happened decades earlier. These details were seared into their memories forever. Even worse, they each explained in their testimony how the attacks dramatically affected them for the rest of their lives. No one can reverse or take back the horror of their rapes.

In dramatic contrast, their rapists (Trump and Kavanaugh) simply blew off their attacks. They show absolutely no remorse for their actions. There is no concern for what they put their victims through. All they were focused on was getting their 30 seconds of sexual satisfaction.

Let’s put aside all the Republican holier than thou theatrics and Trump’s Bible waving. It is impossible to comprehend that Trump and Kavanaugh believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing and always present God. And, it is hard to believe they can ever expect God’s limitless mercy unless they admit their rapes and publicly and personally  apologize to their victims. They should also apologize to all the people they lied to about their assaults.

Impacts on society…

Our leaders’ values are reflected across society. This is fine when our leaders are George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Unfortunately, this is not so good when young people’s role model is Donald Trump.

For most of us, the idea of Trump as a role model is ridiculous. Yet, in Republican households, Trump is a deity – a living god. In these families, Trump’s sex partners and he and Kavanaugh’s assault victims are liars, whores and worse who just made up lies to discredit their Messiahs. From my experience, Republicans are divided into two groups insofar as Trump and Kavanaugh’s rapes. One group is sure there was no rape, but if there was, it was the woman’s fault. The second group is even worse. These macho Republicans look at these rapes as just evidence that Trump and Kavanaugh know how to handle women.

Imagine being a teen-age girl raised in this environment. These girls are taught that sexual assault doesn’t really happen. If it does, it is their fault. For boys, raping a girl is simply what real men like Trump and Kavanaugh do. If they get caught, they are taught to just deny, deny, deny, no matter the evidence. To say sexual assault is marginalized in these Republican households is an understatement.

One would have to live in a vacuum to believe Trump’s 2017 inauguration and Republican marginalization of Trump’s pussy grabbing tape and rape conviction hasn’t made an impact in our society. A February 2023, CDC survey found an alarming spike in sexual violence toward teenage girls during Trump’s presidency. Nearly 1 in 5 females (18%) experienced sexual violence in the past year, a 20% increase from 2017. More than 1 in 10 teen girls (14%) said they had been forced to have sex (raped).  According to the researchers, teenage girls are experiencing record high levels of sexual violence, and nearly 3 in 5 girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Nearly one-third of girls (30%) reported seriously considering suicide, up from 19% in 2011. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-sexual-attacks-teen-girls-increased-lockdown-rcna70782

Republican diversion

For decades, Republicans have used support for ending abortion as their litmus test for morality (that they claim is based on their Christian faith). Yet, the Bible in is explicit that life begins at first breath.

“Genesis 2:7 is clearest. The first human (Adam) became a ‘living being’ (nefesh hayah, ‘a living breath’) when God blew into its nostrils and he started to breathe. Before taking his first breath, he was just a shell. Human life begins when you start breathing, Biblical writers thought. It ends when you stop. That’s why the Hebrew word often translated ‘spirit’ (ruah) — ‘life force’ might be a better translation — literally means ‘wind’ or ‘breath.” 

“Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. Injuries to the woman prompt the normal penalties for harming another human being: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Killing the woman is murder, a capital crime. The miscarriage is treated differently, however — as property loss, not murder. The assailant must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. The fetus is important, but it’s not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-what-the-bible-says-and-doesnt-say_b_1856049

The Bible leaves no ambiguity about rape. “The Bible addresses the issue of rape directly. And, as one would expect, the Bible depicts rape as a gross violation of God’s design (e.g., Genesis 34). The Bible condemns rape whenever it is mentioned.”

“As the people of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership, the laws of God were repeated. One of those laws was a clear prohibition against forcing a woman into a sexual encounter against her will, or what we today call rape.“

“The law stipulated that a rapist was to be killed by stoning.” (Deuteronomy 22:25).”

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-rape.htm

What can be done?

As much as I despise Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, and what they done to women, I’m not advocating stoning them to death. What I wish would happen, is that Republican voters/parents would accept that rape is a terrible crime. Hauling kids to church and making them sit through hours of boring sermons, Sunday school and all the rest isn’t going to make them good people. Far more important is Republican parents need to live and teach that sexual assault is wrong, it is not the victim’s fault and rape should be severely punished, no matter who commits it. A first step for Republicans is acceptance that a civil or criminal rape conviction should be absolutely and immediately disqualifying for the leader of a nation.

While I don’t expect that will happen, what is attainable is to remove the statute of limitations for sexual assault in all states. Delaware already has no statutes of limitations on any sexual assault. Eight other states have no statute of limitations on felony sexual assault and 27 states waive their statute of limitations if new DNA evidence is found.

It is understandable a teenager like Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s accuser, would be scared to death to report Kavanaugh’s assault. Years later, after coming to grips with what the assault did to her, she should have the option of bringing Kavanaugh to justice. Likewise, while Trump bragged he could grab women’s pussies and never have to worry because he was famous, years later, his victims might not be so afraid and should have the option of prosecuting him in criminal court. The goal here should be that Trump, Kavanaugh and every other rapist should spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulder and wondering if this is the day one of their victims is going to have them arrested for a long-ago rape.

What we can do…

Republican voters obviously don’t care if their president is a convicted rapist. That should further incentify the rest of us to vote for Democrats. Frugal Ron lives in Texas and will take the opportunity in 2024 to vote against Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who was instrumental in pushing Kavanaugh’s confirmation through the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican senator to vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. All other Republican senators were complicit, or worse.

There is clearly a difference in political parties about morality and sexual assault. North Carolina’s 2020 Democratic Senate candidate, Cal Cunningham, was leading comfortably in the polls. Then it came out that the married Cunningham was sending romantic texts to a female reporter. Democratic voters weren’t forgiving and Cunningham lost. Al Franken Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Democratic Representatives Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, John Conyers of Michigan, Elizabeth Etsy of Connecticut, Ruben Kihuen of Nevada and Katie Hill from California and Governor Andrew Cuomo  of New York were all forced to resign over actions not nearly as serious as Trump’s sexual battery/rape conviction. The point is, Democrats are guilty of sexual harassment and assault. The difference between the two parties is that Democratic voters are unforgiving of sexual assault while Republicans condone it in their politicians and jurists.

The message here is simple. Vote for morality, vote for competence and vote for Democrats. Voting is the easy part. What is also important is confronting Republicans and letting them know that rape is wrong; regardless if it is committed by a black man or a white, racist, bigoted Republican former president.

Republicans hoped to use their slim majority in the House of Representatives and the debt ceiling to force President Joe Biden and Democrats to make major cuts in federal safety net programs. They failed.

Why Republicans choked

The whole debt ceiling charade was a Republican concocted crisis. If Republicans really wanted to cut the deficit, they had a perfect opportunity the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency when they controlled the House and Senate. Instead, they cut taxes for rich people and raised the deficit from $571.6 billion in Trump’s first year in office (2017) to $982.1 billion in 2018. In 2019, they increased the deficit again, this time to $1.16 trillion. In 2020, after Trump’s disastrous mismanagement of the COVID pandemic devastated the economy, the deficit ballooned to an all-time-record $3.0 trillion. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 Federal Government Current receipts and Expenditures, Line 49, Net ending or borrowing. https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDMsM10sImRhdGEiOltbImNhdGVnb3JpZXMiLCJTdXJ2ZXkiXSxbIk5JUEFfVGFibGVfTGlzdCIsIjg3Il0sWyJGaXJzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAxNiJdLFsiTGFzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAyMyJdLFsiU2NhbGUiLCItOSJdLFsiU2VyaWVzIiwiQSJdXX0=)

Back to the charade, if Biden wanted to play hardball with the Republicans, he could have held out until just before the US would have defaulted on our debt. He could have forced an up-or-down vote in the House to raise the debt ceiling with no spending concessions.

Republicans hold a five-seat majority in the House. Three Republicans defecting to prevent economic Armageddon would have scuttled the Republican plan. Republicans would have been left with nothing.

Republicans would probably have dumped Speaker Kevin McCarthy and shut down Congress for weeks or months trying to elect a new speaker. Biden evidently decided to go through the motions of negotiating with McCarthy, throw the Republicans a few crumbs, save them embarrassment and keep Congress functioning.

Deficit reduction or satiating Republican voter’s hatred and racism?

The Republican deficit reduction plan passed in the House never was about cutting the deficit. It only intended to slow future increases in our deficit. The Republican farce really was about satiating Republican voter hatred towards poor people (more specifically, Black people) and cutting health care, housing and food stamps for them. Republican spending cuts were focused on the poorest and most economically vulnerable people in the US.  Republicans in the House voted unanimously for this disaster.

Unfortunately for deficit reduction, the safety net programs Republicans targeted aren’t big dollar items, compared to government spending as a whole. That is why Republicans talk about “ten-year savings” in their proposal. Divide their budget savings by ten and then compare them to our 2022 annual federal government spending balance of -$1.1 trillion or 2022 total spending of $6.17 trillion and you get the idea. (Source Bureau of Economic Analysis, above)

One of the Republican “non-negotiable” items was that poor people couldn’t obtain food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance or other federal benefits unless they are working a minimum number of hours per week. I can imagine how this proposal came from Republicans that inherited farms or ranches and never had to apply for a job in their life.

The inference is clear. Black people are lazy and all that is needed to get them off government programs and move them into jobs is ending their benefits.

In the real world, there are kids and sometimes elderly parents to take care of (that fall out of the range of parents with very young children that were to be exempted from the work requirements). Republicans love to complain about Black single mothers not working while at the same time complaining about single parents who don’t supervise their kids. You can’t have it both ways.

There are a myriad of other issues like transportation, physical and mental health issues and racism that poor Black people have to deal with that White, middle class Republicans can’t begin to fathom. And, while jobs are plentiful now, what happens when a Republican becomes president and unemployment shoots up to the 10 percent range like it has with every Republican president since 1980? God forbid, some of the people not eligible for health care, food stamps and other help might be White Republicans.

In the negotiated bill Biden signed into law, Republicans did get food stamp work requirements enacted for single people without children, aged 49-57. However, food stamp eligibility was expanded to homeless people, veterans and people aging out of foster care, all without work requirements. The net is more people are eligible for government help (without work requirements) after debt ceiling negotiations than before.

The hypocrisy

Republicans hate seeing people long term, living off the government It may be commendable to reduce people’s dependence on government. However, the hypocrisy is blatant when Republicans don’t have the same enthusiasm for cutting White, farmer welfare payments  There are no people more dependent on long-term government handouts than crop and dairy farmers. https://www.frugalron.com/are-us-farmers-the-real-welfare-kings-and-queens/

Perhaps if farmers’ government benefits were cut, farmers would become more responsible and take more pride in their self-sufficiency? Personally, I don’t care how deep farmers’ stick their snouts into the trough of government subsidies. All I ask is that if farmers think they are entitled  to subsidies, they show some compassion. Especially for those far worse off that need essentials like food, medical care and housing.

Republicans claim the programs they want to cut and farmer welfare programs are completely different. Yes, they are different. As different as black and white.

More cuts

Republicans also planned to cut federal spending to underfunded schools, which are predominantly in urban and rural neighborhoods populated by black and brown skinned people. Their proposal would cut approximately $4 billion in funding for schools serving low-income children, impacting an estimated 26 million students and reducing program funding to its lowest level in almost a decade—a cut equivalent to removing more than 60,000 teachers and specialized instructional support personnel from classrooms.

For good measure, The House Republican proposal would limit educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues, prevent violence, suicide, and drug abuse by cutting Title IV, Part A funding for schools by about $300 million. (Source: FACT SHEET: House Republican Proposals Hurt Children, Students, and Borrowers, and Undermine Education).

So much for Republican rhetoric about increased funding for mental health programs to stem gun violence in schools.

Republicans claim spending taxpayer money on these schools is futile since these extra dollars have not resulted in improved performance. That is not true.

From a Northwestern University study, “Low-income students benefit most from increased spending. On average, these students spent about six more months in school, were 10 percentage points more likely to graduate high school, had 13 percent higher wages as adults, and were 6 percentage points less likely to live in poverty. Farther out, their family income increased by 17 percent.” (Source: The Benefits of Increased School Spending; www.school-spending-policy-research=brief-jackson.pdf) This is only one of many peer reviewed, published studies that identify the benefits of increased spending in underfunded schools.

My observation is the reason Republicans don’t want to spend White taxpayer money on these schools is pure and simple. It is racism. Republicans don’t want to improve opportunities for kids of color. Republicans also believe money is better spent on schools with predominantly White kids because they are more intelligent. No data to back this up, but Republicans don’t need data to prove what they are sure is true.

Protect high income tax cheaters

Republicans also planned to gut the $80 billion increase in Internal Revenue Service funding that was part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. The $80 billion is one investment that will actually have a return on investment; the government will get $200 billion back over ten years. Republicans want to derail the IRS funding increase to protect taxpayers making over $400,000 annually that cheat on their taxes. They aim to protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes and throw the financial burden of funding government on schmucks that file W-2s and can’t cheat.

Republicans appear to have failed here also. Surprising how there was no public outcry to protect rich, tax cheaters?

From the New York Times, “Still, because of the leeway that the I.R.S. has over how and when it spends the money, the clawback might not affect the agency’s plans in the next few years. Officials said in a background call with reporters that they expected no disruptions whatsoever from the loss of that money in the short term.

That’s likely because all of the $80 billion from the 2022 law was appropriated at once, but the agency planned to spend it over eight years. Officials suggested the I.R.S. might simply pull forward some of the money earmarked for later years, then return to Congress later to ask for more money.” (Source: New York Times, New Details in Debt Limit Deal: Where $136 Billion in Cuts Will Come From https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/business/debt-ceiling-agreement.html)

The ultimate government boondoggle

Republicans specifically made an exception so ethanol subsidies wouldn’t be a part of their domestic spending cuts. In fact, they authorized more government funding to help ethanol producers convert production to supplement jet fuel instead of just automobile fuel.

What this means to consumers is that we have higher gas prices because of government ethanol mandates. For farmers, it means much higher corn prices because they now burn up 45 percent of their crop in ethanol.  Because of tax breaks to ethanol producers, it means bigger government deficits. For the environment, it means increased contributions to climate change because ethanol is 24 percent more carbon intensive than gasoline. https://news.wisc.edu/at-bioenergy-crossroads-should-corn-ethanol-be-left-in-the-rearview-mirror/

While Republicans preach “smaller government”, ethanol is an example of big government over-reach, favoritism and their hypocrisy. While Republicans have no problem subsidizing a climate harmful industry while jacking up corn prices, they have no problem cutting government benefits for the US citizens that need help most.

Slower economic growth

Besides being ineffective in cutting the deficit and discriminatory by forcing all the cuts on poor people least able to afford them, the Republican plan would be bad for the economy. According to Reuters, “A Republican plan to cut federal spending in exchange for lifting the U.S. government’s debt ceiling would lower employment, slow economic growth and “meaningfully increase” the likelihood of a recession,” Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist told a Senate committee on Thursday.

Mark Zandi told the Senate Budget Committee that U.S. GDP growth would be 1.61% in 2024 if the Republican plan were enacted, compared with 2.23% otherwise, and lead to 790,000 fewer jobs.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-debt-ceiling-standoff-senate-democrats-dissect-republican-plan-2023-05-04/

Slow growth, job losses and increasing unemployment rates do not concern Republicans. Donald Trump had the lowest annual percentage GDP growth during his term and the lowest number of jobs created of any administration since those records were first kept in the 1930’s. Trump also increased the Unemployment rate from 4.7 to 6.3 percent (a 34 percent increase) during his time in office. Yet, Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Success for Republican politicians is measured by what they’ve done to keep the US white and what they’ve done to make Black people’s lives more miserable. No better example of the latter than the Republican “deficit reduction plan”.

More blame…

Democrats deserve blame for their inability to balance the federal budget in the two years they controlled the House, Senate and presidency from 2021-23. Over the last 40 years, the Reagan/Bush I, Bush II and Trump Administrations all had huge deficits that increased dramatically during their terms and each ended in recession. Conversely, the Clinton and Obama presidencies slashed deficits and ended with dramatically lower unemployment at the end of their terms. They also had rapidly growing economies. Clinton had a $153 billion budget surplus after enacting a tax increase early in his presidency and left office with an even stronger economy than Obama’s.

Republicans have an excuse for not being able to figure this out. Democrats don’t; they should be bright enough to make the connection. If Biden and Democrats had balanced the budget by raising taxes on those most able to afford it, they would have given us stable, recession free growth (based on the Clinton and Obama record). They probably would have also reduced inflation.

A balanced federal budget would bring more jobs back to the US since every country’s trade balance equals the sum of government and private savings. Changing federal government savings from a $ trillion negative to a positive balance would have a huge impact on our trade balance.

Yes, Biden cut the federal budget deficit from $3.1 trillion in Trump’s last year in office to $1.1 trillion in 2022. And yes, Frugal Ron admits to being a real conservative and admits to his bias for an end to huge government deficits.

Yet it is obvious. When conservative policies are enacted to lower the deficit during a presidential term, we get increased growth and lower unemployment. The fact is that a $1.1 trillion deficit is far too high. Unfortunately, we won’t have another opportunity to lower it until after the 2024 election.  Hopefully Democrats will control the presidency, Congress and the Senate with big enough majorities to enact tax increases on those most able to afford it.

Destroying the Republican tax cut fantasy

Tax cuts for rich people do not pay for themselves. Republicans claim that after they cut taxes, tax revenue returns to the previous level in a few years. This is misleading. It is more accurate to use annual tax revenue data from before a Republican tax cut and use those values to draw a trend line into the future. When you compare the actual tax revenue after the cut to the trend line, the difference closely matches our annual deficits, in the period up to the next Republican tax cut. This is why Republican presidencies since 1980 all have huge deficits.

The math doesn’t lie. We can’t eliminate our deficits by cutting spending. Congressional Republicans campaigned promising they could find enough spending cuts to balance the budget. They failed spectacularly. Republican tax cuts for rich people got us into this mess and only tax increases on those most able to pay will get us out.

We cannot indefinitely continue running outsized federal government spending deficits. Rather than ineffectively balancing our budget by cutting support for our poorest citizens, it makes much more sense to balance our spending by taxing our richest ones. The top 10 percent of wealthiest US households have $52 trillion of wealth. The other 90 percent have $44 trillion. (Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:133;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:levels) The richest people profit most from our capitalist system. They are the individuals that gain the most from preserving it. They should be willing to pay to protect the system.

Morality

The Republican deficit reduction plan was ineffective, racist and would have resulted in lower economic growth. It was immoral by placing the burden on poor (Black) people while sparing the rich and the favored (farmers) from any pain. What makes this truly hypocritical is that the plan was promoted by Republicans, who seem to believe they are “God’s Party”.

Christian hypocrisy didn’t begin with Donald Trump. I remember growing up in rural, west-central Wisconsin and figuring out decades ago that if I wanted to meet real Christians, the last place I wanted to look was the local Taylor Lutheran Church on a Sunday morning.

So, I guess I’m not surprised that people claiming they are Christians would take away food, medical care and shelter from the poor. At the same time claiming to believe: “For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

For Republicans, that take joy in making Black people’s lives more miserable, I guess they missed the following verse; “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.”  Romans 15:1

Seems like Jesus was questioning Republicans when he asked, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” 1 John 3:17

Nothing in the Bible seems to advocate taking from the poor and then expecting the poor to go out and immediately find jobs or a better job. Nowhere does the Bible describe that as charity.

While Republicans seem to think rich people are sacred and government should do everything to preserve their wealth, the Scriptures seem to look at this differently. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” Mark 10:21-22

Republicans wanted to use deficit reduction as an excuse to hinder the IRS from going after wealthy tax cheaters. The Bible also speaks of tax collectors. The Disciple Paul (later St. Paul), who once was a tax collector said, “That is also why you pay taxes, because the authorities are working for God when they fulfill their duties. Pay, then, what you owe them; pay your personal and property taxes and show respect and honor for them all.” Romans 13:6-7

God makes it clear that government officials are to deliver justice and assistance to the poor. “May they judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice! May they defend the cause of the poor and give deliverance to the children of the needy…” Psalms 72:2,4

How does a religion, that in both the Old and New Testaments, continually tells rich people to give up their wealth to the poor to gain eternal happiness wind up being the religion of a political party that protects rich people’s wealth and takes food housing and medical care from the poor? And, how does an out-and-out socialist like Jesus Christ become the deity of today’s Republicans?

How does one correlate separating 3,900 brown skinned children from their parents (that came to the US legally applying for asylum) with supposed fealty to a religion that espouses, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God”. Leviticus 19:33-34. Or,

“The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.” Psalm 146:9

And last: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,  and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7. I’m completely at a loss for how Republicans somehow interpreted this as life begins at conception.

I keep having this recurring vision of an army of racist, make-believe Christians marching along, waving their Bibles, praying, reciting Bible chants, singing church songs and following their true Messiah, Donald Trump, on a one-way trip straight through the Gates of Hell. My vision, my story.

Summing-up

The Republican deficit reduction plan:

• Would not have reduced our current deficit.
• Would have slowed economic growth.
• Would have increased unemployment.
• Would have harmed educational results in underfunded schools.
  • Long term, would result in lower productivity in those students.
  • Long term, would result in lower taxable income from those students.
• Would have deprived poorest citizens of food, health care and housing.
• Would have continued the concentration of wealth in the US by shielding the wealthy from tax increases.

It is impossible to ignore the racism in the Republican plan. They concentrated all the pain of their spending cuts on the poorest, most vulnerable people. A disproportionate number of the people most harmed are Black. This is morally reprehensible. It is especially reprehensible to real Christians and Christian values.

This simply reinforces a point made often on this website. Being a Republican and a real Christian are mutually exclusive. You can be one or the other, but you can’t be both.

Moving along, the Republican deficit reduction plan is also fiscally irresponsible. We aren’t going to get rid of our federal government’s deficit without some serious tax increases.

The Republican deficit reduction plan was not pushed through by a fringe minority of Republicans. All Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for it. Republicans own this, whether when running for reelection or on their Judgement Day, if they believe in such a thing.

The good news is the Republican plan got little public support and failed. I like to think this is another sign that the silent majority of Americans believe, “Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” Philippians 2:4.

This whole fiasco has shown that Republicans are not a real political party that can be a partner in true deficit reduction. Congressional Republicans are an extension of Donald Trump’s mob of January 6, 2021. Remember, 139 of these House Republicans voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. They can hardly be expected to support the reality of real deficit reduction.

Republicans are an angry mob of White racists trying to turn back the clock 75 years for women, minorities, Jews, Muslims, LGBT+ and anyone else that doesn’t fit into their mold. We can’t change these people from hating. But, by getting out and voting for Democrats every chance we get, we can make sure they never have enough power to legislate their hatred.

Less than two and a half years ago, Donald Trump, and by extension the United States, was the world’s laughing stock. Today, the US is the undisputed, most powerful country in the world. Once again, the US is what former President Ronald Reagan called, “the shining city upon a hill.”

During the Trump years, the United States was regarded as a fading power bypassed by China and lagging behind Europe and the Pacific Rim countries. While Donald Trump catered to the world’s worst dictators, President Joe Biden has re-established the US as the leader of the world’s good guys. For example, Germany refused to provide modern tanks to Ukraine until the US lead by providing tanks first. Under Biden, the US is once again the world’s arsenal of democracy.

Joe Biden transformed the wretched economy Trump left behind into the world’s economic powerhouse.

• Trump is the only president, since employment records were first kept in the 1930’s, to have negative job growth during his term. Biden has created 11 million jobs since taking office. This is 1.5 million more jobs than before the pandemic. There has been a net gain of 740,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s term.
• Biden has almost halved Trump’s end of term unemployment rate.
• When Biden took office, there were more unemployed people than job openings. Now there are almost two job openings for every unemployed person.
• The duration of unemployment has dropped by half sine Biden took office.
• Trump had he lowest GDP increase during his term of any president since records were first kept in the 1930’s. Under Biden, inflation adjusted GDP growth is a total of 8 percent over the two years of Biden’s presidency, far above normal growth.

In addition:

• Biden lowered the 2020 Trump budget deficit of $3.1  trillion (an all-time record) down to $1.1 trillion in 2022.
• Biden cut federal government spending in 2022 by over $659 billion from Trump’s last year in office.

US Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 Federal Government Current Expenditures and Receipts https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDMsM10sImRhdGEiOltbImNhdGVnb3JpZXMiLCJTdXJ2ZXkiXSxbIk5JUEFfVGFibGVfTGlzdCIsIjg3Il0sWyJGaXJzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAyMCJdLFsiTGFzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAyMiJdLFsiU2NhbGUiLCItOSJdLFsiU2VyaWVzIiwiQSJdXX0= Accessed 03/30/2023

All this is happening while China’s economy is floundering. Much of the difference is the two nations’ approach to COVID. Trump still hasn’t come to grips with how deadly and dangerous COVID is. Trump’s strategy of blaming Democrats and the media for COVID and eventually just hoping it would go away resulted in thousands of preventable deaths and devastated our economy. In contrast, China and other east Asian and Oceania counties followed strict COVID mitigation policies. Their economies continued growing.

The biggest reason for the US’s success

Biden came into office and quickly used the Defense Authorization Act to finally get hospitals desperately needed N95 masks and other protective clothing. Biden kicked Trump’s political hacks out of the Center for Disease Center and replaced them with professionals.

Most important, Biden took a no expense is too great approach to getting every person in the US that wanted the COVID vaccine vaccinated as fast as possible. The US vaccines are phenomenally effective and virtually eliminated COVID deaths in people that are fully vaccinated. What this did was to remove our fear of leaving our homes. This had far more to do with our economic resurgence than any of Biden’s economic policies.

At the same time, the more contagious COVID variants made the previously successful containment policies countries such as China implemented less effective. China’s Zero COVID policy involved  quarantining vast sections of their country. After giving up on the Zero COVID policy, China is having major COVID outbreaks and deaths. It appears their vaccines and vaccination efforts are not as effective as the ones Joe Biden implemented. The net effect of all this is while the US economy is surging, China is in an economic retrenchment.

Why has the US regained its mojo?

The obvious difference between Biden and Trump is intelligence. I conservatively estimate Biden’s IQ is at least 50 points higher than Trump’s. The Baby Trump ballon in the above picture was a result of Trump not being bright enough to recognize the danger of climate change. Trump’s pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Accords directly impacted  the Europeans in the photo.

Trump does not have the intelligence or common sense to differentiate between real threats like COVID and climate change and his crazy conspiracies.

However, there is more to all this than intelligence. Biden is famous for his verbal gaffes. Yet, you don’t see NATO leaders mocking Biden like they did Trump at the 2019 NATO Summit with imitations of Trump’s pompous wind-bagging. And, you certainly won’t see Europeans parading around inflatable Biden in diapers balloons.

The difference is that Joe Biden commands the kind of respect Trump can only fantasize about. Biden stands for democracy and freedom. That resonates with people everywhere.

In contrast to the pathological liar Trump, Joe Biden is a good person. Biden treats others with respect and has empathy for others.

A few caveats…

Trumpism is a cult where his followers look at Trump as a living God. For his followers, criticizing their true Messiah is heresy. Conversely, Biden supporters look at Biden as a good person that tries to do the best he can. But, Biden is human. He makes mistakes.

Republican economic failures over the past 40 years have shown  you can’t build a solid, resilient economy on massive spending and huge deficits. I’ll be surprised if Biden can pull it off over the long term without a recession.

While Biden has lowered spending and deficits from Trump’s levels, that isn’t much to brag about. Biden and Democrats missed a generational chance to balance the federal budget. They should have increased tax rates on the rich back up to the US’s  historical levels and stopped the massive accumulation of wealth in the upper one percent of our population. We’ve had over 40 years of welfare for the rich. It was time for that to to end. We won’t have another chance to balance the federal budget until Democrats again control the presidency, the Senate and the House.

Nevertheless…

The US is in a much better place than we were two and  a half years ago. It is good to focus on Biden’s accomplishments and the how the rest of the world once again respects us. Considering what Trump left behind and where we are today, Joe Biden has truly “Made America Great Again!”

Rural counties are the bedrock of the Republican Party. In many of these rural counties and voting districts, over 80 percent of voters vote Republican. Racism, rural America and today’s Republican Party are inseparably woven together.

We can accurately measure the level of racism in a group or geographical area by using a proxy measure. That measure is the percentage of people who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The simple reality is that the Trump presidency was such a disaster that no rational voter wanting effective government would ever vote for Trump.  For those with doubts about this, please see the Appendix at the end of this article

Sadly, the obvious reason for Trump’s godlike devotion from his voters is their mutual level of racism. Hence, why the proxy measure of measuring racism is so accurate. All these voters know is that Donald Trump is the most racist president in their lifetimes. That is all that  matters.

It is particularly telling that the only viable Republican alternative to Trump is Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Governor DeSantis’s campaign doesn’t revolve around  ideas to improve our lives. He is focused on attracting Republican racist voters by denying Black history and the biology of sexual orientation in the classroom while spending Florida taxpayer money dumping unsuspecting immigrants into northeastern US cities.

Some background…

One thing Frugal Ron is an expert on is the people living in rural America. Frugal Ron was born and raised on a farm between two towns of about 350 people in Jackson County, Wisconsin. One can read about and talk about living in rural America. But, there is nothing like being raised in the rural United States and owning and operating a dairy and cash crop farm for 12 years (that ranked in the top 10 percent of gross income farms in the US at that time) to really understand farmers and rural people.

Before going further, a couple points…

First, not all rural people are racists. In farms and small towns, you will find some of the kindest, most decent, intelligent and honest people anywhere. These folks judge people by what is in their hearts, not by the color of their skin.  Of course, these people would never vote for Donald Trump. Sadly, these people are a distinct minority in rural America. Hence, the focus of this article.

Second, for the sake of space, simplicity and readability, when referring to racism, I am also including homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-semitism and hatred of outspoken, powerful women; but not writing it out every time. Most Trump voters share more than one, or in many cases, all of these hatreds. Having written this, it is my observation that racist’s hatred for people born with Black skin is a whole level higher than their hatred of all the other groups combined. Even more telling, White racist’s fear of Black men drives Republican craziness about unrestricted gun ownership, assault rifles and the like.

Another thing I’ve learned is most urban Democrats have no idea of the level of racism that exists in the countryside. While listening to young, urban White people discussing how they try and stop their implicit racial bias (saying and doing things they don’t think are offensive, but are hurtful to people of color), I have to stop. In rural America, the racism and hatred is right up front. The “N word” is just part of the vocabulary and the hatred towards Black people is ever present. We definitely live in two worlds in the US.

Who are rural people?

Growing up, it always amazed me that after graduating from Taylor High School, the best and the brightest kids disappeared. Most went to college, some joined the military and a few got jobs somewhere else. Whatever, they were just gone. I never saw them again. They left, never to come back. I know the feeling well. I eventually did the same.

On the other end of the spectrum, many of the ne’er-do-wells in school never left Taylor. Some others tried to make it in the outside world and came back. In Frank Sinatra’s signature song, “New York, New York”, the lyrics include the line, “If you can make it there (New York City), you can make it anywhere!” Conversely, if you can’t make it anywhere else, you are always welcome back in Taylor, Wisconsin. I think these generalizations are very accurate throughout rural America.

Another large group in rural areas are former farmers. Some of these folks failed to keep up with technology and were forced off their small farms. Others retired and left because their kids wouldn’t live in rural areas or wanted better career opportunities. Along with former farmers are people who worked for feed mills, machinery dealerships and such that were also displaced. These folks fought progress and lost.

Another group you’ll find in rural areas are large commercial farmers and the agribusiness people that support them. Folks that can survive in today’s agricultural environment are some of the sharpest and smartest business people anywhere. These people easily have the brains to see right through Trump’s lies and BS. Unfortunately, because of their racism, they choose not to. This is extremely disappointing.

Misconceptions and aggrievement

All of these groups have a lot of resentment. The US government poured $billions in the last 70 years trying to sustain small farmers and rural America. It was never enough. Many former farmers are forever embittered and are sure they are the victims of government and corporations that forced them out of business. Their injustice is amplified by their perceptions that Black people all live off welfare and sit around all day watching TV, having sex, eating pizza and drinking beer on the taxpayer’s dollar. Further, they believe Black people are predisposed to breaking the law. The only protection (besides their arsenals) White people have is the thin blue line of police that are constantly handcuffed by liberals.

Trump stepped in and managed “the politics of aggrievement” better than anyone. Rather than blame their own lack of initiative and education; it is easier for Trump supporters to blame Democrats, Jews and the media for their unfulfilled lives.

When Trump supporters say they see their traditional values under attack, it is important to know that their traditional values are racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, hatred of powerful, outspoken women and a bastardized form of Christianity that favors taking from the poor and giving to the rich, separating children from their parents and glorification of constant lying and violence towards women. The disappearance of these values is the best thing that can happen to the United States.

Surviving racism

So, what causes this racism? Frugal Ron had a very typical rural upbringing. I remember growing up, listening to my father and his friends saying, “An awful lot of Niggers are going to have to starve to death before the rest learn how to work!”

My mother would tell anyone that would listen that colored people were better off when they were slaves. She regularly warned me that coloreds always carry knives and, “They’ll shiv you as look at you!”

Racism in rural areas is all pervasive. One Sunday (I was in sixth grade, or thereabout), I asked my Sunday School teacher why there was such a difference in the way church people and Jesus treated poor people. I’ll never forget his answer, “Jesus didn’t have to deal with Niggers.”

(Note: Carbon dated skulls with Negro features have been found in the area Jesus would have lived in at the time He lived. Not only that, Jesus’s hair was like pure wool, according to the Book of Daniel. That means His hair was kinky. The Book of Revelations says His feet were like burnished bronze. That means He was brown-skinned. Jesus was a Palestinian Jewish man who, as a child was able to hide from the King of Judaea by spending years in Egypt. So, He looked like an Egyptian. Working in Palestinian sunshine as a carpenter also meant His skin was darkened. The reality is, Jesus was far more likely a Black man than the White guy with a tan depicted in most Christian churches and literature.)

What happened?

So, getting to the crux of this article, why didn’t Frugal Ron turn out to be a racist, Trump supporter? And, what does this teach us about racism?

For one thing, I’m thankful I was born with enough intelligence to think for myself. Far more important are the life experiences that make us who we are.

More than anything in the world, I grew up wanting to be a farmer. In 1972,  after my sophomore year in college, I lined up a summer job at Quail Roost Farm in Rougemont, North Carolina.  Quail Roost Farm had the top show and production Guernsey herd in the US.

As soon as I got to the farm, the farm manager told me I wouldn’t be working with the cattle like I was promised. Instead, I was going to be on the field crew. My next shock was that I was the only White guy on the all Black crew of eight men. I’m sure they figured I would be on the next plane back to Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I spent all my money getting to North Carolina, so that wasn’t an option.

Anyway, that summer was one of the best in my life. My Black co-workers took me in as one of their own. I learned more about Southern culture and life than I ever could reading books.

On weekend nights, the White guys on the dairy crew would take me out and told me why I wasn’t getting to work with the cows. The state dairy milk production records association had caught the farm manager cheating on their milk production records. The last thing they wanted was some nosey kid from Wisconsin around the cows.

I never got to see or touch a cow that summer, but learned more about life than I could have imagined. I lost a bunch of idealism, but also learned skin color has nothing to do with honesty or integrity. The most important thing I learned is that people born with Black skin are just like people born with White skin. There are good and bad people in both groups. Most are just good people with hopes for the future and the same love for their families that most White folks have.

More life experiences…

After my farming career, I went back to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to finish up my bachelor’s degree. One of my favorite classes was algebra. I loved algebra and was really good at it. In my class, I wound up sitting next to a Black gal. We got to be friends and would compare weekly quiz grades. Unless I got a perfect score and tied her, her scores were always a couple points higher than mine.

So, here I was in a class I was great at and I was sitting right next to this gal with Black skin who was not only smarter than me, but also  better looking. Any illusions I ever had about White male supremacy were laid to rest in that Algebra 112 classroom..

What this means…

I actually worked with Black people in a setting where I was the minority.  I actually talked with Black people and listened to them. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know many other Black, Brown, Yellow and Red skinned people and many Jewish people. Compare my experiences with someone whose only contact with a Black person was buying a brat and beer at a Milwaukee Brewers game. That isolation from people who are different is how you maintain racism.

The same goes for homophobia. I grew up certain there was something terribly wrong with homosexuals and they needed to fix it.

The day care we sent our two-year old daughter to while my wife and I were both University of Wisconsin students (my post-farming academic tenure), was partnered with the education and child development departments at UW. The day care sent out a letter to all parents that they were hiring an openly Gay teacher.

By this time, I’d figured out homosexuality wasn’t contagious, so i didn’t object. The fellow they hired was just a great guy and my daughter loved him to death. For those Republicans that are aghast that we would let our daughter be influenced by a Gay person at an impressionable age, that daughter has been married to the same guy for over 12 years and they have three kids. If the Gay pre-school teacher was trying to groom our daughter to become a lesbian, he failed miserably.

The point of all these throwback memories is that my not becoming a racist Trump supporter has little to do with my genetics and nothing to do with the water I drank. It was all about my life experiences breaking me out of the mental prison of racism I was raised in. Understanding this journey is key to understanding the causes of rural racism. The antidote to racism and all the rest is living and working with people who are different.

I’m not so idealistic that I think we can eliminate racism by simply intermingling. Some of the most racist Republicans I know were born and raised in privileged urban areas.

People like living around people who think like they do. Consequently, White rural people will continue isolating themselves. The only cure for the racism of  most White, rural Republicans over 60 is dying. But, for many younger, White rural people moving to urban areas, there is hope.

Appendix

Over and over on this website, we have documented the Trump disaster. However, for those that need a reminder:

• Trump is the only president to have negative job growth during his term since these records were first kept in the 1930’s.
• Trump had the lowest GDP growth of any president since those records were kept in the 1930’s.
• Trump’s $3.1 trillion government spending deficit in 2020 is the largest in history. Trump increased the federal spending deficit each year he was in office.
• Trump dramatically increased federal government spending each year he was in office. During his term, he increased federal government spending over 63 percent. No president, Democrat or Republican, has been so spend crazy since World War II.
• The US’s international trade deficit increased every year Trump was in office. The 2020 trade deficit was 47% larger than  President Barack Obama’s last trade deficit.
• The Holy Grail of conservatism is for government to keep out of the marketplace and never pick winners and losers. Trump violated this rule with his ineffectual trade war. By protecting the US steel industry with 30 percent tariffs, he caused immeasurable harm to US manufacturers competing with foreign made products using cheaper steel.
• Trump increased the unemployment rate by 36 percent during his term in office.
• Following the record 28 percent drop in annual abortions achieved during the Obama term, Trump turned around 30 years of declining abortions in the US by having more abortions at the end of his term than at the start. Trump compounded the abortion problem by nominating three Supreme Court justices who are completely out of synch with people in the US. Following passage of unenforceable abortion laws in Republican states, abortions are now more available and cheaper than ever.
• On foreign policy, Trump showed that his real master is Vladimir Putin. For decades, Putin has tried to undermine Western faith in democratic elections while trying to destroy NATO. Trump has been a willing pawn, even ordering all US military personnel out of Germany on his last day in office. (The order was quickly deep-sixed by the US Joint Chief of Staffs.)
• Trump’s response to the COVID pandemic was the most disastrous policy response to a threat in US history. While Oceania, east Asian countries and Canada controlled the pandemic with minimal life lost, Trump ignored the advice of the US experts that leadership in those counties followed. Trump claimed COVID was something like the flu, would go away soon and was a concoction of Democrats and the media. During Trump’s term, the US racked up the world’s highest number of COVID deaths  and one of the highest per capita COVID death rates. His misinformation campaign became the heart of Republicans aligning health care decisions (not getting vaccinated) as a mark of their fealty to Trump. This resulted in another half million more people, almost all of whom were not vaccinated, dying of COVID in the next two years after Trump left office.

With his record high deficits record high spending and market interference, Donald Trump is the antitheses of a conservative. His ability to muck up everything he touched illustrates his incompetence. His record high number of lies during his term made it impossible to trust or believe him. Trump’s efforts to undermine the democracy our ancestors fought for is a strange kind of patriotism.

Trump’s lack of intelligence combined with his repulsive behavior made him and the US the world’s laughing stock. Not since the British burned the White House during the War of 1812 has the US had so little international respect as during Trump’s presidency..

Republicans seem intent on rolling back time and installing their version of a Christian moral order. Their first target is abortion and their means of attack is the recently enacted Texas abortion law.

What has the Texas abortion law accomplished?  Texas legislators passed and Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 8, the United States’s most draconian law restricting abortions. The law went into effect on September 1, 2021.  The law deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” the provision of an abortion after six weeks post conception or after detection of a fetal heartbeat. Successful plaintiffs receive a minimum of $10,000.

According to Texas state data, the number of abortions in Texas dropped by half in the first month the law went into effect (compared to the same month in 2020). However, researchers at the University of Texas (UT) took the Texas state data a step further and counted Texas women getting abortions out-of-state. They found the law only reduced abortions by less than 10 percent. 

According to the UT study, “We obtained data on Texas residents who received abortion care between August 1 and December 31, 2021 at 34 of the 44 open (abortion) facilities in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma—states where we expected Texans to travel based on past reports. In August 2021, the month prior to the implementation of SB 8, 235 Texas residents received abortion care at one of these 34 facilities. Between September and December 2021, an average of 1,391 Texans per month obtained abortions at these out-of-state facilities, with monthly totals ranging from 1,330 to 1,485. These data undercount the total number of Texans receiving care out of state since we did not obtain data from 10 facilities in these states, and it does not include Texans who have traveled to other U.S. states for care since September 2021.” http://sites.utexas.edu/txpep/files/2022/03/TxPEP-out-of-state-SB8.pdf

Besides out of state travel, Texans also used medical abortions. These were not counted in the University of Texas study. Aid Access (aidaccess.org) is an Austrian based non-profit that provides medical abortions through the mail. The actual drugs are manufactured in India. The organization provides consultation and charges $110 for the pills and service.

Aid Access does not specify how many Texas women received medical abortions from their organization. They do report that an average of 1,100 women ordered pills per month from them. That is triple the number of women that ordered medication abortions from them before the Texas abortion law was implemented.

Women are also able to buy medication abortion drugs over-the-counter in Mexico. Mexico legalized abortion last September. For many Texas women, travel to Mexico for an abortion is much easier than going to other US states. Women getting abortions or medical abortion drugs in Mexico weren’t counted in the University of Texas study.

In summary, the University of Texas study documented a less than 10 percent reduction in Texas abortions during their four month study. The UT study did not include:

• Abortions performed at the 10 open abortion facilities in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma that did not report data on Texas women getting abortions at their facilities.
• Texas women getting abortions at US clinics in states not listed above.
• Texas women getting abortions in Mexico.
• Texas women getting medical abortions from Aid Access or other online providers.
• Texas women getting over the counter medical abortion drugs in Mexico.

People across the country pulled together to help these women. Planned Parenthood built a large clinic in southern Illinois in relatively close proximity to many of the states outlawing or restricting abortions. They have donors covering bus transportation, motels and the procedure. Clinics in New York also have funding for airfare, lodging and abortions. Staff at these facilities make all the arrangements.

So what does this say about the Texas abortion law? Clearly, the drop in Texas abortions is far smaller than the 10 percent figure reported in the University of Texas study. The actual percentage drop in abortions is probably in the low single digits. Even worse for Republicans, the most economically disadvantaged women that weren’t able to travel out of state or use other means to get an abortion are going to have predominately Brown and Black skinned babies. This has to be discouraging to Republicans who spent four years during the Trump Administration doing everything possible to keep America white.

So, if the Texas experiment failed, why are other states rushing to make the same mistake? First of all, I don’t think red state lawmakers can admit the Texas law failed. Worse, they don’t want to admit they were outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Texas women and other women’s groups nationwide. Republicans live in a fantasy state of denial.

The deeper reason these efforts continue may well be that Republican men and women are jealous. They can’t tolerate the reality that women using birth control and with abortion as a back-up enjoy sex as much as men. Even worse, these women have the power to make their own life and career decisions. Maybe these Republicans are jealous of women that enjoy passion and intimacy?

Since SB 8 was unsuccessful, how can we dramatically reduce abortions?

If the goal of SB 8 was to significantly reduce the number of abortions, the effort failed. Another way to measure the impact of SB 8 is to compare results to other efforts to reduce abortions. The table below illustrates the impact of birth control on reducing abortions. 

More details are at https://www.frugalron.com/republicans-the-real-pro-abortion-political-party/

Here is a quick summary of what caused the dramatic drop in the number of abortions in the US since 1992. During the eight year Clinton Administration, Title X family planning funding was dramatically increased for five million families. Title X is the country’s only national, federally funded family planning program. First created with bipartisan support during the Nixon administration, the program has long provided no-and low-cost contraception counseling and dispensation to those who would otherwise be unable to afford or access it. Clinton also signed legislation requiring federal employees’ heath insurance plans pay for birth control. This impacted 1.2 million women of childbearing age.

During President George W. Bush’s term, his FDA did everything they could to keep the Morning After Pill off the market. They failed. During Bush’s Administration, the Morning After Pill went from being a prescription only product to being sold over the counter to anyone over 18. By the end of Bush’s tenure, Emergency Contraceptives were sold legally over the counter to anyone. Access and use of the Morning After Pill was the primary reason abortions continued dropping during the Bush years.

President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act provided free birth control to all women buying individual health insurance policies. In 29 states (including Texas) and the District of Columbia, employers meeting certain requirements were required to provide free birth control to their employees. This requirement and the wider adaption of Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs) were the main reasons for the dramatic 28 percent drop in annual abortions during Obama’s term. (LARCs are 20 times more effective than the birth control pill in preventing unwanted pregnancies. They are close to 100 percent effective. If a woman wants to become pregnant, she can just have the implant removed. Depending on the option, LARCs last from two months to ten years.)

Donald Trump, during his single term in office, implemented a new rule that barred any provider in the Title X network from so much as mentioning abortion, even if a patient asked about it. This resulted in seven states and Planned Parenthood dropping out of the program. The Title X program went from seeing 4 million patients in 2017 to 1.5 million patients in 2020, a decrease of over 60 percent, Planned Parenthood’s nationwide clinics were a major source of free contraceptives and education. https://19thnews.org/2021/10/title-x-contraception-family-planning/

Trump tried but failed to end the Affordable Care Act. However, he did make every effort to sabotage it and the free contraceptive benefit. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/09/six-ways-trump-has-sabotaged-the-affordable-care-act/

Restricting access to birth control and information during Donald Trump’s term in office resulted in an 8 percent increase in abortions.

This is extremely important. During 30 years of making birth control more available (and often free), annual abortions dropped 44 percent in the US. This changed while Donald Trump was president. The turnaround in annual abortions was not a coincidence. It is a direct result of Trump’s restricting access to contraceptives.

While there are many smaller reasons for the drop in abortions over the last three decades, one effort we know was insignificant are Republican restrictions on abortion access enacted on the state level. The US lowered the number of abortions by 666,600 annually between 1992 and 2017. If this occurred because of Republican abortion clinic closures and abortion restrictions, logically, there should have been an extra 666,600 more babies born in 2017 than in 1992. However, the 3,853,472 live births in the US in 2017 was the lowest in 30 years.

The failure of the Texas abortion law to make any real impact on the number of abortions and the increase in abortions because of Donald Trump’s actions while president underscore what Frugal Ron and readers of this website have known for years. There is no such thing as an anti-abortion Republican. Laws restricting abortion access don’t work. Making contraceptives more available, and in a best case scenario free, dramatically lowers the number of abortions.

As far as morality, making abortions illegal doesn’t make the US more moral. It simply makes hundreds of thousands of women living in red states that never even received a parking ticket before, into criminals for violating their state’s laws on abortion. If Republicans want to restore morality in the US,  they should dump Donald Trump as their party leader.

 If Texas Republicans just wanted to match the pathetically low drop in abortions that SB 8 obtained, they could make minor tweaks requiring more employers to offer free birth control. Or, they could dramatically slash the number of abortions by offering free birth control, including LARCs, to all women.

The bottom line on the Texas abortion law is this. It failed spectacularly measured by the number of abortions it prevented.

Republican conservatism, a myth

If the Texas abortion law didn’t make a dent in the number of abortions, why are Republicans and their Republican Supreme Court so focused on repeating this foolishness nationwide? It certainly isn’t because of conservatism. The core belief for true conservatives is that individuals can make much better decisions than government can. 

What the Bible says about when life begins…

Many Republicans profess that enacting abortion laws (even if they aren’t effective) is doing God’s work in returning morality to the US. They claim life begins at conception. There is no Biblical basis for this. In fact, the Bible makes clear that life begins at first breath. 

“Genesis 2:7 is clearest. The first human (Adam) became a ‘living being’ (nefesh hayah, ‘a living breath’) when God blew into its nostrils and he started to breathe. Before taking his first breath, he was just a shell. Human life begins when you start breathing, Biblical writers thought. It ends when you stop. That’s why the Hebrew word often translated ‘spirit’ (ruah) — ‘life force’ might be a better translation — literally means ‘wind’ or ‘breath.” 

“Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. Injuries to the woman prompt the normal penalties for harming another human being: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Killing the woman is murder, a capital crime.The miscarriage is treated differently, however — as property loss, not murder. The assailant must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. The fetus is important, but it’s not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.”

“A few passages talk about someone called by God before birth: ‘The LORD called me from the womb. From the innermost parts of my mother, God named me … and said to me, ‘You are my servant Israel, in whom I’ll be glorified” (Isaiah 49:1-3).

“Here, the one called is the nation Israel, not an individual. A nation of course can’t occupy a womb. The language is figurative not literal. It isn’t describing prenatal biology or pinpointing when human life begins. It’s affirming God’s power and Israel’s calling to a special mission in the world.”

“Other passages make the same point by saying someone’s called by God before they’re even conceived (Genesis 18:9; 1 Samuel 1:17; Luke 1:31). I’ve not heard anyone make the case, based on these texts, that human life begins before conception.”

“It’s hard to ask biblical texts the modern question, ‘when does human life begin?’ because the Bible has a very different understanding of human reproduction. Biblical writers don’t talk about sperm fertilizing eggs. They talk about male ‘seed’ planted in fertile female ground. Just as a seed becomes a plant when it emerges from the ground, so too a man’s planted seed becomes another human being when it emerges from the womb.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-what-the-bible-says-and-doesnt-say_b_1856049

The bottom line here pertaining to abortion is that it is impossible to murder someone that was never alive.

What the Bible says about birth control…

As noted above, over the last 30 years, providing free birth control or making it more available resulted in dramatic drops in abortions. Logically, if the goal is to reduce abortions, we should do everything possible to make the most effective birth control more available.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that while there aren’t any anti-abortion Republicans, there are lots of anti-birth control Republicans. While they claim to be fighting abortion, it is evident their big prize is outlawing birth control.

So, for those who believe in Biblical teachings, there are two examples in the Bible Republicans use to show God’s disapproval of birth control. Neither stand up to scrutiny.

The first involves Onan, a minor character in the Bible (Genesis 38). Onan’s brother died before conceiving a child. God commanded Onan to produce a child with his dead brother’s widow, Tamar. Onan opts to preserve his financial advantage and interrupts coitus with Tamar, spilling his semen on the ground. For this, God punishes Onan with death.

So, did God punish Onan for having sex with a very ineffective mode of birth control or did He punish Onan for failing to honor a commandment to produce a child with his dead brother’s wife? The Bible doesn’t’t give us an answer. 

For many theologians, since the Bible doesn’t say anything about Tamar giving consent to this whole process, every time Onan had sex with Tamar was a rape. Consequently, this arrangement is a very dubious foundation for any kind of moral argument. 

The second example is that God commanded his people, “Be fruitful and multiply”. However, it is easy to “be fruitful and multiply” while still having protected sex other times. If a couple decides to not have children and they use birth control to achieve their goal, the sin is that they made a decision not to have children, not that they used birth control.

The Catholic Church does approve of abstinence and the rhythm method of birth control (abstaining from sex during the woman’s period of ovulation). Other churches have adopted similar rules. 

Many women have a difficult time understanding why the rhythm method of birth control (which is not effective) is allowed while the types of birth control that are highly effective are a mortal sin. The Catholic reason is that any type of birth control that stops the sperm from fertilizing the woman’s egg is considered “a grave matter”. There is nothing explicit about birth control being sinful in the Bible. Condemnations of birth control are the rules of man, not God. Different Christian churches have dramatically different interpretations of the same Bible.

Superstitions

Another issue is that many Republican Christians are superstitious. These folks believe that the droughts, severe storms, COVID and all the rest we are experiencing have nothing to do with climate change. In their view, these are just God’s punishment because we allow abortions, birth control, empowered women, false religions and homosexuality.

What they fail to realize is that in the first half of the 20th Century, we had polio, the Spanish flu, consecutive years of drought, the Dust Bowl, locusts, boll weevils, the Great Depression,  and two World Wars. During that time frame, abortion was illegal, divorce was illegal, gay sex was illegal, birth control and interracial marriage were illegal in most states and the percent of Americans attending church was at an all time high. In addition, women, homosexuals and coloreds knew their place in society.

While it is fine to long for the good old days, they weren’t great for a lot of people. Especially anyone that weren’t heterosexual, white males.

The bigger picture on Biblical interpretations

Republicans somehow think they are doing the Lord’s work by opposing abortions and birth control. Yet, the Bible makes clear that life begins at first breath. The Bible simply doesn’t make any direct claim that birth control is wrong. Republican Christian arguments rely on ambiguity and guessing what Bible writers meant. Often, church leaders just apply their own interpretations.

Republican Christians make abortion and birth control rules based on ambiguity and conjecture about what is in the Bible. At the same time, on other topics like charity, helping the poor and condemning  greed, they ignore the continual and very direct teachings in the Bible. Some examples:

“He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses.” Proverbs 28:27. 

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2

Certainly, no hidden meaning  in these Biblical quotes. However, applying these lessons to Republican policies like taking food stamps, housing and medical care from the poor while giving tax breaks to the rich doesn’t apply to the buffet style of Christianity Republicans follow.

Where do we go from here?

As more and more states pass bills mimicking the Texas abortion  bill, women in the affected states will have to travel further for safe abortions. Abortion facilities in sanctuary states will have capacity problems. 

While most Texas women circumvented the law by traveling out of state, the future will definitely involve more medical (drug induced) abortions. Currently, buying the pills online means 5-15 days for the drugs to arrive from India. This is an unacceptably long time when medical abortions should be done within ten weeks of conception. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/04/abortion-pills-online-telemedicine/

So here’s a way for an enterprising individual to help women keep control of their bodies while earning a decent living. An entrepreneur could set-up a website like doityourselfabortion.com (the domain is still available at this writing) and create an online shop and presence in Mexico. While both Mifepristone and Misoprostol are sold over-the-counter in Mexico, I‘d recommend focusing on just selling Misoprostol since it is a generic and is also used for stomach ailments. A four pill regimen of Misoprostol is 99 percent effective in aborting a fetus. 

If worst comes to worst, the most our entrepreneur can be charged with is shipping a drug to treat indigestion into the US. If someone is going to use it for an abortion, that is their business. 

I’d also suggest an extra optional box to check on the online order form if the customer wants the pills shipped packed with skin care lotion or some other product. This will work for girls that need the package delivered to their parents’ house and borrowed their parents’ credit card to make the purchase. 

If Frugal Ron was willing to move to a new country, learn a new language, start business from scratch and learn which Mexican politicians to make business partners, I’d do this myself. Unfortunately, at this stage of my life, I’ll leave this opportunity to someone else.

More Republican folly

If Texas Republicans were capable enough to pay attention, they would notice it is one thing to pass a law banning abortions. It is another thing to actually enforce it. 

Some of the Republican efforts are just plain bizarre. Some states are passing laws making it a felony for a woman to travel to another state to get an abortion. They choose to ignore that it is impossible to determine if a woman had an abortion or a natural miscarriage. No medical facility is going to give up private medical records. Maybe these Republicans expect women to put up an Instagram post, “My trip to Illinois to get an abortion”? 

Republican run state legislatures are busy passing laws outlawing the delivery of abortion pills through the mail. These laws are also a waste of time since authorities cannot open mail without a warrant. Getting a warrant is even more difficult for the authorities if the drugs are coming from a country or state where their use and sale is legal. Complicating things more for Republicans, mailing the pills in a plain envelope with no return address would require law enforcement to get a warrant to search every piece of mail coming from India, Mexico or any other country or state that women are getting medical abortions from.

The Catch-22

Polls show 64 percent of US voters do not want to see Roe versus Wade overturned and abortion made illegal the US. Logically, voters should be mobilized and elect enough Democrats to overturn the filibuster in the Senate and send a bill protecting the right to legal abortion to President Biden to make into law. 

I doubt this will happen in the near future. Abortion laws are a Catch 22. As long as abortion laws are as ineffective as the Texas law and women with money can readily get a safe abortion when they want, few voters and politicians are going to make an issue of it. However, if Republicans could ever figure out a way to write an abortion bill that was actually effective, the Silent Majority would rise up and kill it in a flash.

Where we go from here?

The demise of abortion laws will actually happen in courts. It won’t be decided by judges, but by people like you and I. When authorities capture an abortionist, or someone sues someone for aiding an abortion, there will be a jury trial. In the US, one of every four women over 40 has had an abortion. Presumably, one of every four women under 40 will want an abortion sometime in the future. Already, the odds are stacked in the favor of the abortion provider. We need to vote for acquittal if given the opportunity.

I expect after a few unsuccessful cases of individuals suing abortion facilitators, (allowed in Texas’s SB 8), the high legal costs associated with bringing these cases will cool people’s enthusiasm.

District attorneys and attorney generals in Republican states have vowed not to prosecute anyone for being involved in an abortion. https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/10/14/coalition-prosecutors-attorneys-general-across-us-vow-not-enforce-antiabortion-laws/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/prosecutor-abortion-virginia.html

The Canadian example

In Quebec, Canada, Dr. Henry Morgentaler was charged with providing illegal abortions. Morgentaler admitted to performing over 6,000 abortions and just to show his goodwill to prosecutors, he also gave them a video of himself performing an abortion. Prosecutors charged him three times and juries acquitted him three times. Finally, prosecutors deemed the abortion law unenforceable. The Canadian Supreme Court eventually struck down Canada’s abortion law as unconstitutional.

After striking down Roe this summer, I don’t expect the US Supreme Court to revisit abortion until at least two Republican justices have died.

In the meantime, what I expect will happen in other Republican states is what is happening in Texas now. Today’s Republicans are so gullible they will believe anything they are told to believe. If Fox News and Republican politicians tell them that their abortion laws are saving hundreds of thousands of babies’s lives, they’ll buy it hook-line-and-sinker. At the same time, women wanting an abortion will have easy access for traveling to a sanctuary state or ordering an online abortion. This is about the best we can expect in the next few years.

Wrapping up

Today’s Republican Party and the Republicans on the Supreme Court are living in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. These people think the Supreme Court can make laws outlawing abortion, same sex marriage and contraception and that people will blindly obey them. Then, there is the ridiculous notion that the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, will make the US a “moral nation”.

The saddest part of all this foolishness of trying to outlaw abortion is that we are wasting time and resources that should be applied in figuring out how to make the most effective means of birth control available to any woman of reproductive age that wants it. The facts from the last 30 years show that without a doubt, free and more available birth control dramatically reduces the number of abortions. Outlawing abortions does virtually nothing to reduce abortions.

The part of this whole argument about abortion that is missing is the gut wrenching decision it forces on women and their families that are confronted with an unwanted pregnancy.

Getting an abortion, or carrying a baby to full-term, is a life changing choice. Abortion is undoubtedly the greatest social issue our country faces. Fortunately, we have the technology and the means to dramatically reduce the need for abortion. We just need the political will to make it happen.

Decades of farmer legislative success have made producers in many agricultural segments into lieges of the state. While farmers have no problem getting a fill suckling on the teat of government subsidies, these same farmers think it is un-American for poor people (especially Black ones) to get similar government help.

I won’t waste space calling for an end to farmer welfare programs. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, the two most popular presidents in the last 70 years, (measured by end of term Gallup job approval ratings) both  put a great deal of effort into reining in these programs. They failed miserably.

Farm subsidy payments ballooned under Donald Trump. Between 2019 and 2020, total direct government payments to farmers increased  over 107 percent. In 2020, direct government payments to farmers set a new record $51.2 billion, or 43.8% of net farm income (also a new record). The subsidy payments are just the tip of the support farmers get from the government.

Note: To be fair, part of the reason for the 2020 record is because of the impact Trump’s disastrous trade war had on farm income. Trump’s trade war was just one of the avoidable and continual disasters that marked  Trump’s presidency. Fairness or un-fairness of trade agreements have absolutely no impact on trade balances. The difference between a country’s exports and imports always equals that country’s net national savings. https://www.frugalron.com/the-curse-of-liberalism/

Trump gave us real world proof of the futility of a trade war by having the second largest trade deficits in US history (second only to  Republican President George W. Bush).  Many other industries suffered because of Trump’s trade war fiasco, but they didn’t get huge subsidies to bail them out like farmers did.

Slogans like “Don’t complain on a full stomach” are just fine on a pickup bumper, but don’t stand up to real scrutiny when talking about farmer welfare payments. Somehow, products like meat, potatoes and eggs miraculously make it from farm to market without government help (with the exception of grading and health inspections). Highly perishable products like fruits and vegetables also rely on market forces to set prices and get them to the grocery store with little or no government interference.

Many countries around the world manage to get farm products to market by relying on good old fashioned capitalism. These countries do this in spite of the international market distortions caused by US farm programs. The reason the US has an abundance of food is because we have terrific soil , climate, infrastructure and technology – not because of farmer welfare payments.

Let’s look at the gravy train…

The core of US farm programs are support for corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and  cotton. The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) loan programs guarantee farmers loans for all the covered grains they produce. The per bushel price may be higher than the market price. The interest rate is subsidized. Next, the Price Loss Coverage Program guarantees farmers a “Target price” for their grain or cotton. If the average market price over the year is below the target price, farmer’s get a check for the difference. Livestock producers that market all their grain through their livestock also collect this subsidy.

As any conservative capitalist will tell you, “The best cure for low prices is low prices.”  The market distorting government programs provide price floors for farmers protecting them from the full impact of supply and demand driven price drops.  No other industry in our capitalistic economy gets these protections. 

If the above sounds like a “Minimum Wage” program, you are catching on. The only differences are target prices are updated every four years and are much more generous than minimum wages.

Besides eliminating a good chunk of price risk for farmers, the government also subsidizes crop insurance for them in case of poor yields. Depending on the level of coverage, this insurance is subsidized from 38-80 percent of actual cost.

To Republicans, when farmers get highly subsidized price insurance, that is part of the “Farm Safety Net”.  If a low income Black person gets government subsidized health insurance, that is socialism.

Ethanol

The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates gasoline and diesel producers  blend renewable biofuels into their supply. In 2022, the law mandates blending 36 billion gallons of ethanol. This represents an amazing 40 percent of the corn grown in the US. Biofuel producers also receive tax credits to subsidize production.

For a group of people that are absolutely opposed to government mandates, farmers conveniently look the other way when government mandates the gasoline industry use 36 billion gallons of ethanol annually. Consumers certainly don’t seem to want the stuff, based on huge billboards advertising “ethanol free gas”.

Farmers claim accurately that ethanol helps the US maintain energy independence while creating less greenhouse gasses than gasoline. Yet, when farmers and Republicans are confronted with President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” act that will make a far bigger impact on energy independence and lowering greenhouse gas emissions than ethanol, all  the concern about energy independence and climate change disappears.

It is interesting that Biden’s plan includes$320 billion for clean energy tax credits, $105 billion for resilience investments, $110 billion for clean energy technology, manufacturing, and supply chain investments and incentives, $20 billion for clean energy procurement and $960million to retrofit fuel storage to handle bio-fuels. Biden’s bill does not include any mandates.

By 2035, auto makers claim they will no longer produce gasoline powered cars. Bet the farm on this. Republican farmers, who regularly complain that government can’t do anything right, will be demanding that government come up with a solution for what to do with all the millions of bushels of corn now used for ethanol.

The ethanol mandate highlights even more hypocrisy. The federal government often requires its suppliers hire a workforce that is representative of the population where the company is located. Government might also mandate their employees get vaccinated  to protect themselves and other employees from dangerous diseases.

To most farmers, forcing private companies to hire more Black people or women is extreme government over-reach, socialism or for sure – communism! As well, most farmers agree that mandating protections from disease are infringements on basic liberties.  However, if government mandates 36 billion gallons of ethanol on a public that doesn’t want it, well, that of course, is completely different.

In fact, it isn’t at all different. It is hypocrisy to embrace one government mandate that gets rid of 40 percent of the corn grown in the US while criticizing other government mandates that improve and protect lives.

Milk

Socialism has many faces. One of them is certainly Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMOs). Only a few people claim to actually understand these voluminous tomes to bureaucracy – and most of them are lying.

About 75 percent of milk produced in the US is marketed through FMMOs. They are designed to get dairy farmers a “fair” value for their milk. For capitalists, and most non-agricultural producers, a fair value is a market clearing value and doesn’t have any government involvement.  These rules involve the federal government in farm milk price discovery and the FMMOs also stifle competition. But wait, isn’t that socialism?

If the “fair” value of milk established by the FMMOs isn’t enough, dairy farmers can also use the Dairy Revenue Price Protection Program to buy price insurance. The federal government subsidizes the insurance from 44 to 55 percent based on the level of coverage.  So, one might ask, “If dairy farmers are for government subsidized price insurance, what is so different for working poor people getting government subsidized health insurance?”

So, taxpayers are funding FMMOs to keep consumer milk prices higher than they would otherwise be. At the same time, taxpayers are heavily subsidizing price insurance for a group of people who are vehemently against tax payer subsidized health insurance for poor working people.

Unfortunately for dairy farmers, FMMOs and the army of bureaucrats that administer them can’t completely isolate farmers from market forces. Consumers have discovered they can drink almonds. The dairy alternatives market was valued at $22.6 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $40.6 billion by 2026.

For some struggling dairy producers, the solution is more government in the form of federal government mandated milk prices and production quotas. The late Soviet dictator,Joseph Stalin,   would be so proud.

Sugar

While corn, soybean, rice, cotton and dairy farmers make a mockery of free market capitalism, they are in the minor leagues compared to sugar producers.

Most US sugar comes from sugar beets produced in the Red River Valley in northwest Minnesota and eastern North and South Dakota.  Sugar beets are the most inefficient way to produce sugar and can’t compete with imported cane sugar. Having worked in the Red River Valley, I can tell you there is no money in farming like sugar beet farming.

Sugar producers use government enforced import quotas to stifle foreign competition. Then, they formed a cartel and use market quotas to further stifle competition. Rather than letting government set prices and quotas like dairy farmers propose, the sugar producers get away with doing this themselves.  Analysts at the American Enterprise Institute estimate these policies inflate U.S. sugar prices by 69 percent above the global sugar price and provide $1.2 billion worth of annual support to sugar growers and processors. This makes sugar the fourth most subsidized crop in absolute terms.  americanactionforum.org/…/primer-agriculture-subsidies-and-their-influence-on-the-composition-of-u-s-food-supply-and-consumption

According to the CATO Institute, “The U.S. sugar program is a prime example of discredited economic central planning in action.” https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/candy-coated-cartel-time-kill-us-sugar-program

This is just another example of the hypocrisy among the same farmers that decry policies that help poor people as socialist.

What do these subsidies and anti-capitalistic programs accomplish?

Economists say  excess profits are capitalized into the factors of production. In other words, farm subsidies and protections from market forces jack up land prices. These excess profits are not distributed evenly. With or without the farm welfare programs, there is a bell shaped distribution of profits among farmers. Lots of producers are in the middle range with some very profitable and some very unprofitable operators on each side.

The subsidies and market distortions contribute to the concentration of larger farms. These programs supercharge the earnings of the most profitable operators. Profitable operators will expand to maximize profits. At the same time, these programs have raised land prices far above where they would otherwise be. This is a powerful incentive for less profitable operators to sell out. Who wants to work 16 hour days, seven days a week when you can sell the farm and be an instant millionaire?

Also, these programs are self perpetrating. A farm bill is passed and raises land prices. Four years later a new farm bill will be passed by – you guessed it – congressmen from districts heavily populated by farmers. The lobbyists will tell the legislators that land prices and rents have risen dramatically since the last bill was passed. The only solution is to raise loan rates, target prices and all the rest to higher levels. And, the cycle repeats again.

I should admit that during Frugal Ron’s 12 plus year farming career, I maximized every farm program available. However, I always looked at them as glorified welfare programs and never looked down at government programs for poor people that needed more help than I did. Again, that is what this article is really about. Farm programs are here to stay. The point I’m trying to make is farmers should not be against government programs that help poor people achieve basic human needs while gobbling up every farm welfare dollar available themselves.

White privilege

It is worthwhile to try and understand the impact of White privilege in agriculture and how this relates to the dichotomy of the money and special protections White farmers get.

There are very few first or second generation US farmers. Frugal Ron can attest to how difficult it is to make it as a farmer when paying market rates for land, machinery and cattle without substantial off-farm income. Most farms are multi-generational enterprises, and there is good reason for that.

One of President Franklin  Roosevelt’s New Deal creations was the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) loan program in the 1930’s. FmHA gave aspiring farmers low interest, long term loans to buy foreclosed or abandoned farms, usually with no money down. Men with families that got one of these loans usually got a draft deferment and didn’t have to fight in WWII.  Commodity prices were very high during the war and shortly thereafter, enabling many of these farmers to pay their loans off early.

If you Google “fmha discrimination lawsuits”, there is a long list. I can relate to the discrimination. My father was the most blatantly racist and anti-Semitic person I’ve ever known. And, he was an FmHA loan officer for over 30 years.  While I don’t expect he ever got to turn down a Black farmer’s loan application in west-central Wisconsin, his being able to hold his position in FmHA for as long as he did speaks volumes about the culture of the organization from the 1930’s into the 60’s. The kinds of opportunities FmHA provided, or more importantly, didn’t provide, shaped the agriculture we see today in the US. FMHA discrimination is a major reason there are so few Black farmers.

These opportunities are important. In my lifetime in agriculture, I never met a US Jewish farmer. Yet, in Israel, they are the world’s most productive and efficient producers.

The net result of this is that almost all of today’s multi-generational farmers have never have had to fill out a job application. They never had to worry about getting laid off. Or, if their car didn’t start in the morning, getting fired for being late to work.

If they are good at what they do, farmers make phenomenal amounts of money. If they aren’t good managers, unless they really screw-up, they can sell out and be very wealthy. This is an example of White privilege that most Black people can only dream about.

This helps to explain why a Farm Journal poll in January 2019 found that Donald Trump had an 83 percent approval rating among those in the agricultural business. This wasn’t just due to the massive subsidies Trump bestowed on farmers. During the height of Trump’s disastrous trade war, when dairy farmers were dropping like overweight old people in a hot yoga class, Trump’s farmer approval rating was still over 80 percent. These numbers are double what Trump’s overall job approval rating  averaged through his term.

I use Trump’s approval rating or vote percentage as a proxy measure for racism. This is an accurate measure. Because of Trump’s unique level of stupidity, he is the only president in US history that mucked up everything he touched. His presidency is remembered for hundreds of thousands of un-necessary COVD deaths, record setting job and GDP destruction, record setting deficits and percentage spending increases, over 16,000 lies and attempting to overthrow our electoral democracy. Details and data sources are at  https://www.frugalron.com/the-trump-disaster/

While Trump is a fake conservative, a fake billionaire and a fake Christian, there is no denying he is a genuine racist. Looking at the results of Trump’s presidency,  the only reason anyone would ever want him back is that they share his racism. Hence, I find Trump’s popularity rating as an excellent measure of that group’s racism.

Racism and White privilege’s impact

Nothing gets farmers more defensive than talking about their subsidies. Typically, farmers will justify these government handouts by saying that farmers work really hard and that they need them. No argument here on either point.

However, when Obamacare, housing subsidies or food stamps are brought up, these are totally different. Pollsters won’t get this response, but someone very involved with agriculture will get an unvarnished answer along the line of “Niggers just sit on their asses all day and never do any work. They just sit around doing drugs and collecting welfare.” Ask one of these farmers if they’ve ever known a Black person and you’ll get an answer like, “I know all about them.”

Republicans also are sure that safety net programs for poor people are just a waste of money. On this point also, they are very wrong.

According to David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy, “Half a century ago, 123 three- and four-year-olds, all of them African American and all from low-income families who lived on the wrong side of the tracks in Ypsilanti, Mich., participated in an experiment. About half attended a pioneering early education program called Perry Preschool, while the control group did not have the same opportunity. Remarkably, researchers have been able to track the lives of most of these children ever since. The fact that lifelong benefits — including greater academic success, higher earnings and better health — began with two years of high-quality preschool has commanded widespread attention.”

“A study published this summer by Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman and his colleagues takes the implications of Perry a giant step further. This research demonstrates that the children of the Perry preschoolers are also better off because of their parents’ experience.”

“As the Perry preschoolers grew up, they became better educated and developed greater socio-emotional skills than the control group. They became better parents — their children grew up in more stable two-parent families that earned, on average, about $10,000 more a year — enough to lift many of them out of poverty.”

This healthy upbringing has had a prolonged impact on the children of the Perry preschoolers. Compared to the offspring of the control group, they were substantially less likely to have been suspended or assigned to special education, and more likely to have graduated from high school. Now in their 20s, they’re more likely to have jobs and be in good health and less likely to be divorced.

The bottom line: Good early education accelerates upward social mobility across generations.

Another point, “expanding Medicaid eligibility for low-income families. In a recent American Economic Review article, Andrew Goodman-Bacon, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank, concludes that, as much as a half-century later, early childhood Medicaid eligibility reduces mortality and disability, increases employment and improves health. Since its inception in the 1960s, “Medicaid has saved the government more than its original cost and saved more than 10 million quality adjusted life years.”

“Another study has found that when the children who grew up in Medicaid-eligible households were in their 20s, they were more likely to have gone to college than those whose families, despite their similar economic circumstances, had the misfortune of living in a state where their families were not eligible for Medicaid. Now they are earning more and paying more taxes.”

“Critics have used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a punching bag, the nanny state exemplified, ever since the passage of the Food Stamp Act in 1964. This critique is flat-out wrong. A 2018 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that SNAP has helped to dramatically reduce child poverty and that twice as many children would live in deep poverty without the program.”

“Recent research shows that the food stamp program has had a decades-long effect on the health, economic self-sufficiency and the overall well-being of children who came of age in those families. These children are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college, earn more and stay out of prison.”

Summing up…

The image of all farmers being rugged individualists that are the American dream of entrepreneurial independence is a myth. Crop, dairy and sugar farmers are essentially wards of the federal government. They owe their existence to federal handouts, mandates and federal protections from capitalism, competition, weather and market forces. This isn’t opinion, this is fact.

It is ridiculous to ask that these farmers just be more responsible and work a little harder and  that they will miraculously break away from their government dependence. Yet, these same farmers need to recognize that the same advice is equally ridiculous for most low income Black people that weren’t born with the same opportunities multi-generational farmers were born with.

The United States Supreme Court will soon decide if they will overturn Roe versus Wade, the landmark 1973 Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Because of the current make-up of the Court, it is likely Roe versus Wade will be overturned.  Yet, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, by a more than 2-1 margin, US citizens favor keeping abortion legal. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/16/post-abc-poll-abortion-supreme-court/  These results are consistent with other polls measuring overwhelming support for legal abortion.

So, how can a law that only has the support of 30 percent of US citizens get rammed down our throats?  This shouldn’t happen in a democracy where citizens theoretically dictate policies. But, here we are, with a radicalized right wing fringe controlling the Supreme Court.

What went wrong?

In a true democracy, every citizen’s vote is equal. For a number of reasons, this doesn’t happen in the US. We can only say that we have, “kind of a democracy”.

The US Supreme Court is where to start looking at what has gone wrong. Justices are nominated by the president. Unfortunately, voters don’t elect the president, the Electoral College does that. Since the 1992 election , Republicans have lost the popular vote in all but one election. However, because of the Electoral College, Republicans have held the presidency for twelve of those years and appointed five of  the nine sitting justices.

In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won the popular vote by over 7 million votes. He won the Electoral College vote by 306 to 232 votes. Yet, if Donald Trump had gotten roughly 45,000 more votes in three states, Trump would have been re-elected. In this nightmare scenario, Biden would have gotten a mandate from the voters with over 51 percent of the vote to Trump’s 46 percent and still would have lost. That would have been a disaster on many levels.

Since our nation’s founding, over 160 countries have copied parts of our electoral and legislative system. Not one has copied our Electoral College. The Electoral College gives outsized advantage to low population states and distorts the electoral process. The Electoral College was a last minute Constitutional compromise to appease representatives of slave owning states that were worried more populous states would someday outlaw slavery.

While every  citizen’s vote is equal in a true democracy, the Electoral College makes voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada much more valuable. At the same time,  the 2.6 million registered Republican voters in New York are inconsequential because of the large Democratic majority there. Likewise, Democrats in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and other Republican dominated states might just as well stay home and not vote in presidential races. Their votes simply won’t matter.

The Electoral College causes a disconnect and apathy between many voters and their democracy. It is at least partially responsible for a right wing Supreme Court that is not even closely representative of the US population. The other reason for the disconnect between the Supreme Court and the US population is the United States Senate.

The dysfunctional Senate

Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. In the case of Republicans, the president nominating Supreme Court justices may have never received a majority of popular votes. Likewise, the Republican senators that approved the justices, certainly don’t represent the majority of voters.

Again, as a result of a compromise with slave owning states while writing the Constitution, each state, regardless of their population, gets to elect two senators.

In 2018, Brett Kavanaugh, was nominated to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump,  who lost the 2016 presidential election by over 3 million votes. Republicans controlled the  Senate and rammed Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination through the confirmation process while ignoring testimonials about Kavanaugh’s sexual assaults and perjury. Republican senators (who come mostly from small, rural states) did this while representing 42 million less voters than the Democratic minority in the Senate. Between the Electoral College elected president and a Senate majority that doesn’t represent the majority of voters, you start to understand  the dysfunction between voters and today’s right wing and out-of-touch Supreme Court.

More Senate dysfunction

After Texas passed a law basically making all abortions illegal and in anticipation of a draconian Supreme Court ruling, the US House of Representatives did just what they should do, they passed a bill that would guarantee women’s right to legal abortion. This was an exercise in futility.

The House bill then went to the Senate where it died. Senate rules require a bill that doesn’t involve spending to get at least 60 votes to stop a filibuster. Consequently, a 41 vote minority of senators can kill any bill they don’t like.

The Senate filibuster is not part of the Constitution. Nor is the all-powerful, unelected Senate Parliamentarian who makes a bill’s life or death decision if it can be filibustered.

Polls show US voters want legal abortions, campaign funding reform, universal health care, real taxation of the rich and some level of gun control. But, none of this happens. There is a reason. In a real democracy, the majority rules. In the US Senate, the minority rules.

Elected officials picking their voters

The House of Representatives is supposed to be “The People’s House”. Not hardly.

Each Congressional representative represents about 700,000 people (based on the latest Census). Seven states have only one representative, meaning their representatives may represent significantly more or less than 700,000 people.

This is all well and good, but both parties practice gerrymandering. This is a process where state legislatures draw congressional districts that give the party in power the ability to make more safe seats for their party. Democracy be damned. This is all about political power.

Fewer and fewer House seats are competitive. Most elections are decided before a challenger is picked. The gerrymandered districts mean elected officials don’t have to worry about general elections, they only need to pander to their party’s fringe voters so they aren’t challenged in primaries. Since their seats are safe, lobbyists and special interests will bestow humungous campaign donations on them, further insulating them from voters. The Washington Post article below lays out the process of gerrymandering very well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/23/gerrymandering-redistricting-competitive-house-districts/