Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Kids, parents, grandparents, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and families will all be affected in some way by the cuts to federal spending proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration budget-cutter-in-chief the powerful, yet un-elected, Elon Musk.

Very few people know that the neighbor’s autistic child only gets treatment through federal Medicaid dollars. An in-depth report in The Free Press showed Medicaid reaches not just the poor but also people with disabilities. And when we find out this care might be taken away, we understand it’s not such a good idea.

A massive food rescuing program run by hard-working volunteers and members of churches in Mankato might lose a small but important amount of federal money it needs to run the program. Funding for a planned air traffic control tower to make the Mankato airport safer for aviation program students is now at risk.

The proposed federal cuts have come fast and furious from Musk and his DOGE team and without regard for Congress or other authoritative bodies that control federal spending. Let’s not forget Congress, bipartisan congresses of the past, have approved this funding with the consent of the governed. If we want to cut spending, Congress must get involved bringing accountability back to our three-branch, co-equal form of government.

Fortunately, the courts still work and have turned back some of the most egregious Trump power grabs. The courts have said no to Musk’s attempt cut $2 billion from USAID that is owed but not paid. The U.S. Supreme Court backed a lower court’s ruling saying Trump can’t ignore a lower court order. Courts have said “no” to Musk’s cut to probationary employees, saying they must be rehired.

Trump’s attempt to overturn the Constitutions’ birthright citizenship clause has also been stopped by courts, although Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court on that matter is pending.

The unilateral and unprecedented actions of the Trump-Musk administration should have all Americans up in arms. Trump’s attempt to act autocratically is coming very close to being successful in many cases while a compliant GOP-controlled Congress stands idly by. This is the biggest threat to American democracy since World War II.

And now, even the people are ignored as they demand town hall meetings from their representatives in Congress who are not only blind to the threats but deaf as well. And citizens who do protest are arrested and taken away as in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who helped lead protests against Israel at Columbia University.

As actress Debra Winger said “Does that look like America to you?”

— Free Press of Mankato