It’s been a while since I’ve gone on a rant and I have some things to get off my chest, so sit back and let me vent…
Trump and Tariffs- I could rant for hours about Donald Trump and what a disaster he is and how much damage he is inflicting on our country and the world. But, in order to be (somewhat) brief and focused, I will divide my thoughts into a couple of different areas. First off, tariffs. For one thing, I’m still not convinced that Trump knows how tariffs work and I know for damn sure that a lot of his followers don’t. Tariffs are not a tax on other countries. Other countries don’t pay tariffs. The importing company (aka the company in the good old US of A) pays them. So, if we charge a tariff on, say, computer chips coming in from China, it’s not CHINA that is paying the tariff – it is the U.S.-based company that is importing those computer chips that pays the tariff. So, while it may be additional dollars coming into the government’s coffers, it’s not money coming from foreign countries or entities providing those dollars. It’s American companies doing so. And how do you think that the American companies will recoup those extra expenses? They will raise prices on their products, which then means you and I will pay more for those products for no other reason than Trump mistakenly thinks it’s an awesome idea.
Tariffs have their place and can be useful, but only when they are applied strategically to certain products and industries, as opposed to broad-based tariffs on everything. In theory – and this is what Trump keeps saying – tariffs can bring some production/manufacturing back to the U.S. However, that takes a lot of time to occur, if it even occurs at all. If a company wanted to decide to make those aforementioned computer chips in the U.S., there is a LOT of time and planning and expenses that go into that. The company has to spend likely hundreds of millions of dollars to design and build the plant and to then staff the plant and it will likely be at least a few years before the plant is up and running. What is the likelihood that the company is going to elect to do THAT instead of just pay the tariffs and then charge more for the computer chips they continue to get from China and call it a day? That is certainly easier and cheaper than building and staffing a whole new factory. Also, who is going to work at these factories? Unemployment is already low and I can tell you from very recent experience, hiring people into factory or production facilities is NOT easy as is. There generally are not a lot of people lining up to work in a factory or production environment, so adding more of those jobs is only going to exacerbate the existing labor struggles that exist. So, we’re all going to be paying more now and in the future on the possible, maybe, off-chance that companies will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do something that probably doesn’t make much financial sense for them to do. It’s not difficult to see how Trump managed to lose money on casinos nor why he filed for bankruptcy multiple times.
Trump and
DOGE- I think we can
probably all agree that our federal government was bloated and there was
probably a fair amount of waste, duplication of effort, etc. No one is saying that the bureaucracy ran
like a proverbial well-oiled machine. If
you want to cut the fat and streamline government, I’m 100% in favor of doing
so. But you don’t do it the way that
Trump and Elon Musk are doing it. You
don’t just fire tens of thousands of people, many of whom you don’t know what
they do or if what they do is necessary.
You take a more measured, surgical approach. You take your time to audit the department,
determine what it does well and what it doesn’t do well and you figure out a
way to focus on the former and get rid of the latter. If you do that, you can reduce and streamline
the government bureaucracy but do it in a way that intelligently right-sizes
things. You don’t just take a
sledgehammer or a chainsaw and cut the whole damn thing down
indiscriminately. People say the
government should be run like a company, but even companies generally are
strategic in making cuts or laying off employees. They reassess their needs and
where cuts can be made and how to minimize the fallout with the remaining
employees, customers, clients, etc. Trump and Musk are not doing that and they
are creating a mess while making vague promises and assertions about all of the
money they are allegedly saving us.
Trump and “America First” – One of the biggest claims that Trump makes and that his followers constantly repeat is that he is putting “America First.” Really, I’m supposed to believe that a man who used phony “bone spurs” to avoid serving his country in Vietnam has any interest in putting America first? I’m supposed to believe that a guy who has married women from foreign countries twice is going to put America first? I’m supposed to believe a man who openly fawns over authoritarian leaders like Vladmir Putin and Viktor Orban has any interest in actually putting America first? Trump only cares about one thing: himself. He’s proven that time and time again over the years and the fact that a large component of our electorate and population are too delusional to see that is extremely alarming.
Why do we
even vote in Missouri?
– Missouri Republicans – who control virtually every facet of state government
these days – now have a long history of undoing things that voters did at the
ballot box. For a party that constantly
cries about “free and fair” elections and respecting the will of the voters,
they consistently do the opposite in the Show-Me State. From puppy mills to local minimum wage laws
to now paid sick leave, Republicans in Missouri have been, for more than a
decade now, disregarding what happens at the ballot box. Here’s the general playbook:
B)
Voters
overwhelmingly approve measure at the ballot box
C)
Missouri
Republicans don’t like what the voters did, so they insult their intelligence
(“they were confused,” “they didn’t really know what they were voting for”) and
then promptly draft and pass bills undoing what happened in B above.
You see, they talk about things like “small government” while consistently acting like they are the dismissive parent who knows best what we need. When the City of St. Louis passed a minimum wage ordinance that set minimum wage in the city above what it was in the state, the Republicans in Jefferson City stepped in and said “Nope, we don’t like that” and passed laws essentially restricting a city from governing itself. All because they didn’t like what the local government did. That’s being Big Brother and is the opposite of “small government.”
Which brings us to our latest episode of “Missouri Republicans Undoing the Will of the People.” As part of Proposition A that was on the ballot last November – which was approved by nearly 58% of voters – employees are scheduled to be entitled to paid sick leave beginning on May 1. Employees will accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capped at 56 hours (7 days) used per year. The earned paid sick leave could be used for the employee’s own illness or to care for a loved one. It’s really a small thing: thinking that someone who works hard for a living shouldn’t have to either A) lose money because they got sick and had to stay home or B) come to work sick – potentially infecting others – because they cannot afford to lose that money. We can argue about what the right number of sick days is or how they should be used, but conceptually, I think most people agree that an employee should not be forced to choose between losing money or coming to work sick. It’s kind of common sense, which is why (I believe) the bill passed overwhelmingly at the ballot box last November.
