It is another hot day in the neighborhood. The Senate is debating how to sell the idea of cutting billions from SNAP and Medicaid to provide tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. A task worthy of Houdini. The Bill adds $ 3.3 trillion to our over $ 32 trillion deficit. Marie Antoinette, when told that Parisians had no bread to eat, replied, ‘Let them eat cake.’ So it goes with our current government. The people are two to one against the Big Beautiful Bill, and yet the President and his minions are for it. They fear being primaried. Republican Senator Tom Tillis asked what he should tell over 600 thousand of his constituents when there is no money for their Medicaid in two or three years. At the threat of being primaried by the President, he said he would not vote for the BBB, and he would not run for the Senate seat he currently holds. A few of our political leaders have the courage of their convictions.

I do not know poor people by reading about them. I was poor and remember standing in commodity lines for government cheese. Neva J and I did not have hidden steaks at home. We did not eat meat as it was too expensive. We did not buy milk as we did not have the money. We drank powdered milk, and I saved my pennies to get a dime and go to the restaurant a street over from where we lived to purchase a glass. Millions of people work from cradle to grave and live in poverty in the richest country in the world. When I began first grade, school lunches were 20 cents per day, and I did not have the money. I was the only first grader who brought my lunch in a brown paper bag. A fellow student laughed when he asked me why I did not eat in the cafeteria and commented that everyone had at least 20 cents for lunch. I did not. All of my childhood and many of my adult years, I had either nothing in my wallet or a dollar. I worked every day.

The Poor of the Land are President Trump’s base supporters. What an extraordinary thank you for their support. Even the hog at the slop trough recognized its fellow travelers. Contrary to popular rhetoric, we are not the land of abundance. Few attain the promise from poverty and want. It is a different world in a family who have no experience with college or upward mobility. There is no glowing Christmas Tree in the corner of the Great Room, and familial dedication to see that the young do well in the capitalist milieu. Encouragement to attain economic greatness is a concept that is unknown in the history of the poor. The desire for a roof and bread is more in line with the poor’s reality.

White people have been discriminated against. Give me a break. There are pockets of white discrimination, but on a national basis, black people and people of color are the overwhelming people suffering discrimination. This is not even a logical contest. African Americans began as slaves. Have you ever been a slave? Then you probably can not empathize. We are a nation that seeks to distance ourselves from our creed of a Melting Pot. Many poor white people are looking for a White Saviour. President Trump and his sycophant Congress are saying Bend over and grab your ankles.