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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to scale back health services for the undocumented by charging monthly premiums for illegal immigrants and refusing to enroll any more defeats the purpose of the program. Protecting the health of all Californians.
Sure, subsidizing any healthcare, whether for the American-born or for undocumented immigrants, doesn’t come cheap but look at the costs if we don’t: indigent hospital care for illness and injury that would cost a fraction when addressed immediately, the spread of disease on the streets and in schools, the loss of worker-hours especially in construction and agriculture, not to mention the failed quality of life for families and friends who suffer with them.
The budget Karen Bass put forth for Los Angeles has her laying off hundreds of workers, many with essential expertise. A repeat of what tanked the City after the 2008 recession and, again, with the Covid crisis.
The loss of institutional knowledge alone probably costs more in each instance than any savings. And on top were larded incentives for hundreds of the most experienced City personnel to take early retirement. Play it again, Karen?
Trump tariffs and his unpredictability are creating chaos in the markets and putting the United States on a downward spiral, with overseas money withdrawing from what is clearly a hostile investment environment.
Leading to lower revenues at all levels of government to go with the inflation already maiming American manufacturing and hurting ordinary consumers.
Musk mayhem, the gutting of the government, is going to cost it, taxpayers and consumers billions. Where does one start to rebuild when the underpinnings of the rule of law have been pulled apart willy-nilly and the credibility of the country is gone?
The House Republicans were so divided between their ideological pursuits, what their constituents need, and the loyalty the president demanded that it took months to bring Trump’s “big beautiful” budget to a vote.
Yet, still unswervingly united in their fear of a quixotic madman’s threats to use his crypto-millions to tank them in the 2026 primaries with MAGA-men Mini-Me G.O.P. contenders.
But for every Republican faction demanding one damaging policy, another equally powerful bloc insisted on another. The cantankerous coalitions encompass the divergent ideological, political and regional differences in a party that hangs together through Trump’s puppeteering and by movement-motivated harangues rather than any sense of good governance.
What emerged was a Frankenstein’s monster, a messy mega-bill that has something for everyone to hate. Even its creators.
It slithered out of the House on a single vote simple majority but now faces an equal amount of objection-itis in the Senate.
Some Senate Republicans think the cuts to Medicaid are too large. Others think they’re too small. Some want to purge clean-energy tax breaks. Others want to preserve them because they benefit their constituents. For every bloc with one demand that must be met before its members will support the measure, there is another demanding the opposite.
The biggest hurdle?
That this big, beautiful House bill will add three to five trillions more to the current $1.3 trillion federal deficit (by how much the annual budget exceeds projected income – the crisis Bass is now facing in L.A.) over the next decade, repudiating the Spender-in-Chief’s campaign promise to pare the National Debt down to Zero.
Today that stands at $36 trillion – one-quarter incurred under Trump and a majority due to his 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire this year – the largest in the world, and climbing.
Costing taxpayers a bitter $1.8 billion each and every day in interest. Money that should be spent on their health and education, on poverty reduction and expanding the economy.
And, even though Republican Senators rejected the Biden tax breaks, too many of their constituents now have businesses dependent on the continuation of those incentives.
There is also a rising concern that if too many armchair quarterbacks fear the potential loss of their Medicare and Social Security benefits, they might actually heave themselves out of their Barcaloungers and vote.
And not for the party that cut them.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno who now resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
