E.J. Dionne writes that Martin Wolf has got it right:
Martin Wolf, the Financial Times columnist, captured Trump’s ideology with precision when he called it “pluto-populism.” It involves “policies that benefit plutocrats, justified by populist rhetoric.”
If you want proof, look at Trump's budget, which slashes the federal food stamp program:
Trump and Mulvaney are selling this budget as good for hardworking taxpayers by leading us to believe that it would really only hurt moochers and layabouts. Thus did Mulvaney claim that a $192 billion reduction in food stamp spending over a decade was directed at “the folks who are on there who don’t want to work.”
Well, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported, it turns out that in food stamp households with at least one working-age, nondisabled adult, more than 80 percent work in the year before or after receiving benefits, and more than half work while getting them. This is a program aimed primarily at easing the lives of the working poor.
Trump policies are simply built on lies:
Many who did business with Trump learned the hard way not to trust anything he said. His supporters are being forced to learn the same dreary wisdom.
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its evaluation of the health care bill which narrowly passed the House. It concludes that 23 million people will lose health care coverage over the next ten years. Those who will benefit will be the young and the healthy. Those who will lose will be the poor and the sick:
Particularly astounding from a president who promised better health care for Americans who can’t afford it is the $1.85 trillion reduction over a decade from Medicaid and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But didn’t Trump promise not to cut Medicaid? Never mind, budget director Mick Mulvaney told CNBC’s John Harwood. That pledge, Mulvaney explained, had been overridden by Trump’s promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Robin Hood in reverse. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, they are touting a moral justification for selfishness -- Pluto-Populism.
Image: Community New Group
