My cousin works as a temp doctor doing a couple of weeks here and there as a kidney specialist. Recently, he was in Minnesota and had a patient on Medicaid who voted for Our President even though he was a Mondale Democrat. My cousin asked him if he supported OP’s B3 even though it threatened Medicaid patients. The man cheerfully explained that he was not threatened since the OP’s plan was simply to get illegal aliens off Medicaid. I have to say that that man’s understanding of B3 is seriously flawed. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s report last Saturday, of the 11.8 million or so of people who stand to lose health insurance, only 1.4 million (less than 1 in 8) will be people with immigration problems. I hope this man does not lose his life-saving dialysis, but he is one of the people targeted and he doesn’t know it.
The media and the Democrats have been treating the B3 as if it were a budget bill. It is not. It is a demonstration of how corporate business works when it becomes a government. I have repeated said that OP has changed the nature of a state from a kind of national government to a private business. Perhaps, it’s time to say how a business differs from a state.
States are public; businesses are private. States are for service; businesses are for profit. States are for people (even kingships recognize this responsibility); businesses are for bosses. As a result, states have sovereignty over people; businesses have rule over their employees. Thus, states make laws, have a monopoly on the use of violence, and control money; businesses, normally entities under the sovereignty of states, must work “within” the laws of the states.
Because businesses are constrained by law, their habitual relation to law is antagonistic. To maximize profits (and many do not because they are comfortable with their profits, but the logic of profit is maximization), businesses do end-runs around laws, they find loopholes in laws, get used to hyper-technical legalese, talk advertisese (like “BBB”), they insert themselves into the state’s law making process, they practice grey tactics: threats, spying, bribery (which OP, as an international businessman, says is common practice), etc. We expect states not to engage in these habits of operation. It seems a sign of the times that we see government ads on television loudly proclaiming the half-truth that the B3 will reduce taxes for the working people. Sort of. The tariffs passed to the consumers will take money from the consumer to pay the importer who pays the government the taxes. The consumers end up paying the tax but doesn’t know it is a tax, thinking it a price increase. We used to call this cheating, but that is how business works as a government.
The B3 presents a budget which is entirely rooted in the transformation of a state into a business. Take the issue of national debt, for one example. There is no question that it will increase the debt. Why is OP not concerned? The answer is simple. His business, which has many times gone bankrupt (a state boost to businesses in debt), now has the power to print money. He doesn’t need the protection of bankruptcy laws anymore. He will just create more money. Never mind the fall in value of money, because for the wealthy, that future drop in value is compensated for by the extraordinary tax break it receives in the B3, hundreds of millions of dollars every year for each tax-filer in the top 1%. The boss now has a printing press. In fact, the debt can be wiped out by a simple executive order that invalidates all the bonds issued to cover the debt. That would serve China and Japan right, no? Their holdings will be worthless on the market.
The B3 is not interested in providing services unless those services are paid for. This is why so much of the civil budget is cut, why 12 million people will lose health insurance, why education or health or various consumer protection agencies, etc. are cut. Social Security and IRS, which as sources of income the bosses want, will simply be purged of customer service units and other operations inessential to income, and their records will be scavenged for exploitation. Meanwhile, the part of government charged with the exercise of violence is enhanced and coordinated.
The B3 also is directed at ridding the business of judicial oversight and law, and its passage is a test of the executive control over the legislative branch (it has already gotten the legislature to give the executive branch the war powers; it is now after Congress’s money power). When the B3 is passed into law, the executive branch of government will be the sole remnant of the tri-partite constitutional government we used to call the USA. A totally executive government is total bossism, and we are there just to feed profit to them and like it enough to elect the bosses year after year.
I can’t add to your insightful article, Max, except to say so many of us are in the dumps about this Bill passing and trying valiantly to keep our spirits up. I can’t believe that some Americans who are in need still don’t understand how this legislation will hurt them and their loved ones. Blind faith? Who knows what goes on in people’s minds. It is totally outrageous how this abomination of a Bill is making its way through the legislative houses of Congress.