Affordability... President Trump was elected because he ran on making things affordable again. How are we doing?
Despite the struggle for Americans to make ends meet, Trump has been hyper-focused on vanity projects. What could we spent this money on instead?
White House East Wing- Trump illegally and unconstitutionally destroyed the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. Originally Trump claimed donors would pay for the $200 million renovation, however the estimated cost doubled to $400 million and recently Trump has requested $1 billion of tax payer money to fund the project.
Already behind schedule, has already been placed on hold by a judge, who ruled that Trump failed to follow proper procedures to start a project like this. The original date of completion of the project before schedule issues was late 2028.
The ballroom (if built to plans) would dwarf the White House making it look unusually small in comparison and the new ballroom would only hold about 650 guests, which is far from impressive considering Trump has bragged that it would accommodate events like the White House Correspondents Dinner. The guest list for the dinner was about 2000.
Considering the whole picture, this project should represent a serious problem that needs to be taken seriously, if we intend on continuing to have a democracy and not an oligarchy. It is no secret that Trump is far from generous. I cannot find a single instance that Trump did something for someone else unless he receives something out of it. It is highly unlikely that he would be so passionate about a project that he would not be afforded the privilege of enjoying himself. Given his disdain for any and all other presidents (past and ideas of future) I find it well beyond the stretch of the imagination, that Trump started this project that would not originally be completed until the very end of his term, with the intent to create something for future presidents to enjoy, while he, himself would have a limited (if any) opportunity to enjoy.
He spent $1.9 million to remove the iconic White House Rose Garden. He renovated the White House Executive Residence, which was originally supposed to only cost $39 million but actually cost $377 million. He is trying to paint the floor of the Reflecting Pool blue, despite the original color intentionally chosen to be gunmetal gray because of the reflective effect that specific color promotes, originally $1.9 million but quickly raised in cost to $13.1 million.
He is trying to paint the Eisenhower Building white despite the current color is intentionally not the color of the White House out of respect for the White House. Approximate price tag of $7.5 million. He is trying to build a 250 foot tall Arch that is expected to cost over $15 million.
While the country is struggling to afford basic needs, and gas prices continue to climb, Trump makes cuts to FoodStamps and Medical programs, claiming we can’t afford these things that would help American people and at the same time he has a list of vanity projects that will cost tax payers in excess of $1.4 billion.
And this is in addition to the Iran War Cost which includes over a trillion and still going. It is hard for us to understand the actual extreme amount a trillion of something is.. Once we get to a million it all runs together. Let me put it in prospective:
If I take $10 everyday and put it in a box, it would take me 274 years to save a million dollars.
If I take $10 everyday and put it in a box, it would take me 274,000 years to save a billion dollars.
If I take $10 everyday and put it in a box, it would take me 274,000,000 years to save a trillion dollars.
For 30 billion a year, the government can provide free breakfast and lunch for every child in K-12 grades (even those not in need of the free lunch program).
For universal Pre-K it would only cost about $41 billion (that’s no cost preK for every child ages 3-4) It would cost $191 billion to provide child care for every child ages 0-5.
The Iran war is expected to cost more than $38 TRILLION in future expenses that Trump has likely never even thought about once. Not only will our service members require disability benefits for those who are wounded but to replace the munitions we have already spent (not to mention the extreme risk that we are at if an enemy decides to attack us) and the massive interest on the national debt, should be considered too. Let’s not even talk about the economic cost it is already incurring.
Let me put this into prospective too:
Let’s pretend that the cost of the war stops at $1 trillion.
This money could:
Fully fund, high quality childcare for every child in the US for 5 years.
Provide free breakfast, lunch and dinner to every child in the US for 20 years.
Completely eliminate ALL medical debt in the US.
Fund health insurance for about 110 million people for an entire year.
Trump was elected because he promised to bring inflation down on day one. On January 19, 2025, US inflation was 3.0%, inflation is 3.8% today.
He promised that tariffs would make things more affordable and that foreign countries paid them so there would be no extra cost to Americans. He has been ordered by a court to repay all domestic companies back for the tariffs he illegally instated. Companies have passed an average of 90% of the tariffs onto the consumer, but we will not be refunded.
Trump claimed he would NOT start any foreign wars, however, he threatened Greenland, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran with war and hostile take overs, kidnapped the president of Venezuela through a hostile attack (claiming it was because the president was trafficking drugs, however on the same day Maduro stood trial, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a sentence for bringing over 400 TONS of cocaine to America.) Bombed Iran and said he obliterated Iran’s nuclear program and then 6 months later started a war, with no end in sight.
Trump promised no tax on tips, and while this was a promise he kept, the terms are not exactly as he said they would be. First, if you make over $150,000 in annual income, you are disqualified from the exemption and the exemption you qualified for in the past. The deduction only applied to tips up to $25,000. If you qualify, your tips are not subject to Federal Income tax; however you will still have to pay Federal Payroll taxes which is 7.65%. You will also have to pay all state and local taxes on the tips too. This policy will only give you a maximum $2,500 break and that is only if you make less than $25,000 in tips. This would cover the approximate increase in annual cost for basic needs caused by Trump’s tariffs.
Trump was not able to pass “no tax on Social Security”, instead he is giving $6,000 deductions to single payers and $12,000 for joint payers. The problem with this is that these deductions are higher than the deduction already available, so there will be no change for social security recipients unless they have high incomes or business revenue that puts them in a high tax bracket but for most people this will not change anything. If you don’t owe the IRS $6,000 ($12,000) you will not receive the amount that exceeds the amount you owe.
Trump did make changes to the tax bracket structure; however unless you earn more than $400,000 annually you will not see a break at all, in fact if you make less than $100,000 annually you will actually see an increase in taxes. You won’t receive a substantial break, unless you make more than $1 million annually. There is a slight break for people who earn less than $25,000 a year but those breaks are not permanent and expire in 2028.
The only promise Trump made and kept was to aggressively go after migrants. But at the end of the day, even that policy turned out to be a flop and has hurt Americans. Turns out when you deport a mass amount of working people who pay into a tax system without receiving anything back from the government in the future, it hurts the economy. Undocumented migrant workers pay more than $32 billion in federal taxes and about $37 billion in state and local taxes a year. According to one report the amounts are much higher than this, closer to $100 billions. Anyway you want to look at it these billions of dollars of free money to the government since undocumented workers don’t qualify to receive social security or any type of government aid. So the government lost billions of annual revenue, in addition to the high cost to fund the ICE and Border Control for this operation.
Considering the entire picture that has been Trump’s second term, Trump has given us higher inflation, higher prices on everyday items, alienated our allies, depleted our munitions and weapon supply, given Iran a powerful tool to wreak havoc on the entire world through the Straight of Hormuz, forced the entire world to band together to stand up to a bully who refuses to listen to reason, and made the United States the center of jokes around the world.
Once the most powerful country in the world, looked at as a model to strive for, holding a reputation of good intentioned and using soft power instead of hard power to earn its place as the leader of the free world; after only part of a second Trump term has fallen to an isolated, would be pariah, thirsty for power and unwilling to act in the best interests of its own people. A country that is intent on regression instead of joining the rest of the world to move to the future.
Oh how we have fallen, and how sad it is, to have fallen as a result of a mistake we already made once.
References
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