Tag: safety

TRUMP AND HIS REGIME DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU

SUMMARY: President Trump and his regime don’t care about you and aren’t protecting your health, safety, or financial security. Here are some examples of actions they have taken that put you at risk.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and see my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

Trump and his regime don’t care about you, your health or safety, or protecting you from financial fraud and crime. They demonstrate this in many ways. Here are some examples.

The Trump regime is NOT protecting you from financial fraud and abuse. Since its first days in office, it’s been weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Most recently, the Trump-controlled CFPB announced it would no longer make consumer complaints public. Failure to make complaints public will protect financial companies from scrutiny and transparency, hiding corporate misconduct from the public. It removes the incentive companies have to avoid, fix, and respond to problems that comes with public awareness and publicity. Furthermore, the CFPB recently purged its backlog of complaints and canceled a policy requiring refunds to consumers who had been overcharged. [1]

Consumer complaints filed with the CFPB have doubled in 2025 to 6.6 million (from 3.2 million in 2024). Since 2011, the CFPB has received and made public more than seventeen million complaints. Nearly six million consumers have received some form of relief in response to their CFPB complaints over its 16 years of operation. The CFPB has gotten consumers over $20 billion in compensation based on complaints involving loans, bank accounts, credit reports, and other financial matters.

The Trump regime is also NOT protecting us from drug and human trafficking as well as financial fraud because it has stopped blocking the money laundering necessary for these criminal enterprises. It has terminated the shell company [2] registry of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the Treasury Department. Congress created the registry in 2021 through the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). It was a response to the reporting of investigative journalists who documented that between 1999 and 2017 U.S. banks had processed more than $2 trillion in potentially laundered money for criminals using shell companies and operating out of Russia, China, Iran, and Syria. At the time, Senator Rubio, now Trump’s Secretary of State, called the CTA “the most significant anti-corruption and money laundering law in decades.” [3]

To combat this extensive money laundering, the CTA requires every individual owning at least 25% of a shell company to register their legal name, date of birth, and residential street address; and provide an image of an official identification document with a unique identifying number. The Trump regime has now (probably illegally) stopped enforcing this law. [4] The termination of the shell company registry also facilitates oligarchs’ ability to hide their money and avoid taxes. Trump’s Treasury Department also destroyed the registry’s data that had been previously collected.

Law enforcement, national security experts, and small business owners are alarmed. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has called this lack of enforcement of the CTA “a gift to cartels, criminals, and U.S. adversaries.” [5]

On a different front, Trump’s Justice Department has reduced or stopped investigations and prosecutions of crimes like tax evasion, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking. The number of personnel assigned to these crimes has declined because of staffing shortages, funding cuts, and the reassignment of agents to immigration enforcement. [6]

The Trump regime is also NOT protecting your health. Measles in the U.S. is at levels not seen in many years and children have died from it. Nonetheless, Trump issued an executive order demanding states revise their recommendations for childhood vaccinations in ways that will reduce vaccinations for measles, as well as for mumps and rubella. Although the executive order does not change the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations or insurance coverage, it will increase confusion over and distrust of vaccinations that Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Kennedy has been fomenting. This will result in more diseases, disabilities, and deaths. [7]

Foodborne illnesses in the U.S. are at very high levels. This year’s 10,500 cases to-date are almost ten times the annual rates in 2021 – 2025. A major contributor is the Trump regime’s cuts of more than 40% to food safety detection systems, including reduced funding for federal agencies to conduct food inspections and for grants to state and local health departments that track outbreaks. [8]

To add insult to injury, the Trump regime is also reducing access to health insurance and raising its cost for millions of Americans. In late June 2026, its own Department of Health and Human Services reported that at least five million people lost public health insurance in the first six months of the year, a drop of about 13%. For those remaining on public plans, premiums have spiked, more than doubling for some, while deductibles have increased by about $1,000 a person for many as they chose cheaper policies. [9]

The Trump regime announced in June plans to cancel 53 of 66 active grants from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program. TPP was created by bipartisan legislation in 2009 and has been credited with contributing to reducing the unwanted teen pregnancy rate by 65%. The Trump regime wants to end the comprehensive sex education of TPP programs and focus on abstinence promotion, despite evidence that abstinence only sex education is ineffective. A federal judge recently paused the regime’s attempt to put limits on the TPP grants’ sex education programs. [10]

Other examples of Trump regime actions that may hurt you:

  • Canceled the rule requiring airlines to compensate you for canceled flights (after United and Delta donated a million dollars to Trump).
  • Ended the IRS’s free tax return filing program (after the TurboTax tax return prepration software’s parent company gave a million dollars to Trump).
  • Weakened gun laws including restrictions that have been in place since 1934 on sawed-off (and therefore easily concealed) shotguns and silencers.
  • Promote cryptocurrency. But that’s a whole other story.

For lots of good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.

[1]      Conley, J., 8/14/26, “In gift to abusive Wall Street firms, Trump CFPB moves to suppress consumer complaints,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/cfpb-complaint-database)

[2]      Shell companies are legal entities that don’t have any physical presence or operations but are used for moving money and processing financial transactions.

[3]      Baratta, J., 8/14/26, “Trump makes crime legal,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/2026/08/14/trump-makes-crime-legal-corporate-transparency-act-treasury/)

[4]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/15/26, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-15-2026)

[5]      Baratta, J., 8/14/26, see above

[6]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/13/26, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-13-2026)

[7]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/13/26, see above

[8]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/20/26, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-20-2026)

[9]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/20/26, see above

[10]     Conley, J., 8/19/26, “Federal judge blocks Trump and RFK effort to get more teens pregnant,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/teen-pregnancy-programs)

FAIR TAXATION IS ESSENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY

Democracy requires a government that fosters people’s freedom. Its resources must come from fair taxation. Oligarchs cut taxes and undermine democracy to consolidate their power. Economic inequality has bred discontent and distrust of government and democracy, an opening for authoritarianism.

Democracy requires a government that fosters people’s freedom based on their experiencing safety, economic security, liberty, and happiness. To do these things, it must have the resources that come from taxation. The taxes must be perceived as fair and government perceived as reasonably efficient at fulfilling its role. High and growing economic inequality has bred discontent and distrust of government – and of democracy. This has opened the door for demagogues and acceptance of authoritarianism.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

The American democracy, as announced in the Declaration of Independence, would ensure the right of the people to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The government it envisioned would “effect their Safety and Happiness.” The preamble to the Constitution expands on these principles and states that “We the People [are forming a government to] establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.”

For a government to do these things, it must have the necessary resources. Taxes are what provide government with its resources to honor these principles and achieve these goals. They are the life blood of a democratic government of, by, and for the people. As Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts put it, “Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson had a 42-minute conversation with Dr. Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution about the relationship between taxes and democracy, based on Williamson’s 2025 book, The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History. I strongly encourage you to listen to all or part of it, however, I’ll share a summary of and commentary on this conversation here. (Williamson gives a 1-minute summary of the relationship between taxes and democracy at the Patriotic Millionaires conference Money. Message. Millionaires.)

American history indicates that the people are willing to pay taxes if they are perceived to be fair and the government is fostering their freedom based on their experiencing safety, economic security (aka general welfare), liberty (aka justice under the rule of law), and happiness.

The public wants government to do and provide things often referred to as public goods that include schools, roads, law and order, clean air and water, national parks, and a safety net for when things in life go wrong. These things allow people the freedom to pursue their dreams and achieve their goals. The effectiveness of governments and, therefore, their support by the people, comes from their ability to act and get things done. Revenues from taxes are, of course, essential to giving governments the capacity and power to act and deliver these public goods.

It’s important that taxes be perceived as fair and government perceived as reasonably efficient at fulfilling its role. That way the people feel they’re getting a fair return on their investment. The American Revolution occurred, in part, because of taxation without representation and the perception that the government wasn’t delivering what the people wanted. However, the Boston Tea Party was actually a protest over the King giving the East India Tea Company, a huge corporation in its day, a monopoly on the sale of tea in the colonies.

Paying taxes means that taxpayers have a personal stake in their government (aka skin in the game) and, therefore, in participating in democracy, in elections, and with their representatives in government. It’s everyone’s civic duty to make their contribution to democracy by paying their fair share of taxes and being engaged to have their say in the governing process. When governments are capable of and accountable for acting in the interests of the people (aka for the public good), this reinforces democracy and the connection between taxation and representation.

In the 1980s, the Republicans, President Reagan, and the American oligarchy (although we didn’t call them that at the time) promoted efforts to undermine the relationship among taxation, representation, and democracy. They pushed the notion that government wasn’t efficient, that taxes were bad, and that they could cut taxes and still deliver the public goods that people wanted. Basically, they promised a free lunch. They claimed their tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited wealthy individuals and corporations, would “trickle down” to everyone because the economy would boom. Actual experience, with multiple tax cuts over the last 45 years, has definitively shown that this does not happen. The results of their individual and corporate tax cuts have been sharply growing economic inequality and huge, monopolistic corporations.

High and growing economic inequality, along with the loss of economic security and upward mobility for working Americans, has bred discontent and distrust of government – and of democracy. This has opened the door for demagogues and acceptance of authoritarianism.

Throughout American history, oligarchs, from southern plantation owners to the robber barons to today’s corporate executives and investors (including private equity financiers), have worked to cut taxes and undermine a fair tax system. Not only does this make them wealthier, but it also undermines the power of government and democracy to stand up for the people and constrain the oligarchs’ power. If the government can’t and doesn’t deliver the public goods the public wants, the people won’t support it. Oligarchs want to shrink government, make it ineffective, and as one of them said, make it small enough to drown in a bathtub by starving it of the tax revenue it needs to get things done for the people. This undermines support for the government and faith in democracy, creating a reinforcing destructive cycle for government of, by, and for the people while cementing the oligarchs’ power.

Oligarchs want their power to be uncontested and unconstrained. They don’t want to be subject to government regulations or even the rule of law. They want to undermine the voice and representation of the people, as well as their faith in government and democracy. In addition to undermining a fair tax system, they use their wealth to effectively buy politicians and government policies. And they work to undermine voting and faith in elections.

My next post will discuss what a fair tax system would look like and what it will take to get there.

For lots of good news, see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.