Members stevenkesslar Posted February 14 Members Posted February 14 Swing-district Republicans are questioning Mike Johnson’s budget Quote Low-key and soft-spoken, Valadao is the stylistic and ideological opposite of the fire-breathing hard-liners on Johnson’s right flank. His district in California’s Central Valley is one of the six Hispanic-majority GOP seats where more than 20 percent of households receive food aid benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is being targeted under the GOP budget for some $230 billion in spending cuts. Some percentage of Hispanics and Black working class voters who usually vote Democratic voted for Trump. While we don't know exactly why, we already have some good guesses. It was hard to pay rent. They were having a hard time putting food on the table. Who ever would have guessed that the first thing Republicans would do is make it harder for struggling worker class voters to put food on the table? Valadao claims that Trump himself is privately opposed to hurting his own supporters with cuts. I suspect Trump knows he has the wobbliest of political coalitions, that barely won with 49.7 % of the vote. In the big picture, I feel sorry for the working class. I view this whole thing as a peasant's revolt. It was George W. Bush who presided over the death of manufacturing jobs in the US, stripping away about 6 million factory jobs by the time the Great Recession ended. But most of the job losses happened all through W.'s term, before the obvious pain started with the global financial crisis he built. So Trump, to his credit, figured out how to build pain and rage into a movement. But he is a billionaire whose main accomplishment, other than chaos of course, is handing power and tax cuts to billionaire special interest donors. These guys - they are still mostly guys - like to think of themselves as the party of the working class. But they have no idea how to actually do it. Valadao is right to be scared. In 2024, when there was supposedly a Republican landslide, California Republican House members lost not one, not two, but three US House seats. And that was in a year of a Republican landslide I missed. I'll keep ranting about the expanded child tax credits that lowered Hispanic (and Black, and White) child poverty by 50 % for one year under Biden. There was one poll that showed after those ended, there was a 7 % shift away from Democrats and toward Republicans among the tens of millions of people who got that help in a period of roaring inflation. I have no idea whether that poll was accurate. But it makes sense to me, and symbolizes the idea that we can't count on you to fight like hell for us. People say they just want a good job, which they do. But when you mostly gets jobs at Walmart or Uber, those child tax credits come in handy. No one is for child poverty. If there is one thing Biden and Harris could have done differently, I think it was that. On a symbolic level, I think it would have helped if Kamala Harris was the tough warrior who would break teeth and fight like hell to make sure federal money helped poor Hispanic kids and their Moms and Dads, who are US citizens, and who are working like hell to get ahead. And not help Elon Musk avoid public safety standards or get a new tax deduction. lookin 1 Quote
