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My Point of View by Joseph Pacovsky

Trump and Republicans are tearing the soul out of America. We used to have a diverse country of decency and compassion, but no more.

The years of Trump’s lying, his hateful language and his stoking of violence on his own behalf have overwhelmed civility and tolerance.

One of the first things the Trump administration did when he returned to office is to destroy USAID. For more than 50 years USAID saved children around the world from starvation and provided emergency medical care. Nearly 250,000 children are estimated to have already died in less than six months because of Trump’s actions.

Programs that people depend on for basic food and nutrition like SNAP, Meals on Wheels, the Emergency Food Assistance Program (which delivers food to food banks) and the national school lunch program are being slashed by Trump’s administration or facing cuts in Congress.

Funding for AmeriCorps is being cut. AmeriCorps is a jobs program that provides services to underserved communities and helps meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable Americans. It focuses on literacy, homelessness, conservation and health care, including services to treat alcohol and substance abuse. Other services provided are nutrition, violence prevention, mental health, oral health, sexual health and communicable disease prevention. These services provide for the basic needs of the most vulnerable Americans.

Trump’s second administration spent several months firing federal employees indiscriminately. Many of the terminations hampered delivery of services to seniors and veterans. The terminations appear to lack a consistent rationale or justification, and many of them were overturned by judges’ rulings.

Our national government’s compassion is eroding fast, whether it is helping people who have been devastated by natural disasters through FEMA funding or finding cures for diseases by the National Institutes of Health. Rural aid for farmers, businesses and individuals is being gutted. Funding for these programs are being sacrificed to provide bigger tax cuts for billionaires.

Trump and the Republicans are relishing brutality and the sadistic treatment of their targets. How else can you explain why a 4-year old United States citizen suffering from cancer would be deported without treatment drugs or other deportees sent to mega prisons in countries like El Salvador or South Sudan without the due process of the courts?

There is only one purpose for these and many other programs being cut that ordinary people depend on. Massive tax cuts for billionaires. There will be trivial tax reductions for lower income people and any gain will be quickly overshadowed by the increased costs caused by federal aid reductions. For example, higher property taxes will be necessary to maintain current standards for our children’s education.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine famously said of her vote to acquit Donald Trump in 2020, “The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.” He is incapable of learning a lesson. You must have a heart, a soul and a conscience to learn a lesson. My engineering training taught me to know what I knew but it was more important to know what I did not know. Trump’s knowledge and character deficits were not a big problem when just his businesses were in jeopardy. His arrogance is much more dangerous when our country and our youth in the military are in harm’s way due to irrational decision making.

Joseph Pacovsky is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.