The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
Ending the War on Affordability
The term “affordability” has become both popularized and weaponized. For most working-class families, being able to afford the essentials of life is not just a necessity — it's a fundamental right. Food, education, housing, and healthcare are human rights. Trump said affordability is a “fake word,” and his MAGA monsters blame the economic crisis on the Democrats. This means they don’t plan to do much about it. In the meantime, they are blowing through our tax dollars on Trump’s vanity projects and lucrative deals for his family and friends.
Studies on the matter over the last year reveal disturbing statistics: up to 50 percent of American families do not earn enough to cover household essentials. The reasons often cited are stagnant wages, increased costs for goods and services, and inflation. Transportation and childcare can also be big-ticket items for families to shoulder.
Families are adopting their own austerity measures, like eating at home or cutting back on recreation, while we let Trump and Congress completely off the hook. According to Forbes, Trump’s overall fortune of $6.3 billion is nearly three times his financial worth before coming into his second term as president. He has been enmeshed in numerous pay-to-play schemes, bullied hefty financial settlements from frivolous lawsuits, and even manipulated the stock markets. He and his family have used the office to engage in illegal and unethical deals, both at home and abroad. All this grift and corruption is in our name or at our expense.
U.S. taxpayers are being saddled with the escalating costs of the war on Iran. The excursion has been costing us approximately $2 billion daily since February, and these are just the known costs. Trump’s vanity projects, which include the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, the ballroom, the Independence Arch, and other self-absorbed schemes, will cost us over $1 billion and counting.
Billionaires and Congresspeople don’t go to the grocery stores or fill up their gas tanks; workers do that for them. They don’t have a clue about rising costs of living, and most don’t seem to care. We angrily watch how they squander our hard-earned tax dollars while we stress over how we will pay basic household bills.
Americans should not have to suffer silently while our families sink further into debt and watch billionaires enjoy lives of decadence and grandeur off our money. We can stop the war against the working class. We must use our voices, our votes, and our restricted resources to join with like-minded patriots to re-imagine what our country could be, should be. We have to fight for an inclusive economy that centers the working class's needs over the wants of millionaires, billionaires — and now trillionaires. This is what democracy must look like.