March 18 This week Donald Trump unveiled his proposal for the federal budget. Long story short – it calls for huge increases in military spending and cuts in damn near everything else. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, described the proposal as a “hard power budget”. Bring on the bombs, the battleships, the heavy artillery, the nukes. And for social services – things like medical care for the poor and disabled, lunches for kids, meals on wheels, educational funding … well, people are just going to have to learn to fend for themselves. And don’t even mention cleaning up the environment, much less public arts. That’s so soft.
This is the budget of a regime that, within this country, intends to clamp down on anyone who dissents with heavy repression, to impoverish millions and enrich a handful. It is a budget to assert U.S. domination and supremacy in the world through overwhelming military might – including nuclear bombs. It is a nightmare future of war with unimaginably destructive weapons, accelerating environmental catastrophe, massive immiseration. And the fascist regime trying to lead humanity to this future isn’t going to go away unless its driven from power. That’s up to us.