“Education clearly has not been at the top of his list of priorities to address directly, but he has been very supportive of all the work that we’ve done.” Betsy DeVos
Trump plans to cut the 2020 Education budget by $7.1 billion.
War on the economy
The federal government has a $747 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year, which ends in September. The U.S. is quickly running out of money and risking a catastrophic default.
Trump says the U.S. economy is booming because the Dow Index is up. The stock market is not the U.S. economy. The market is driven by fear and greed. Saudis and other investors own U.S. stocks.
Trump wrecked the economy by wasting $1.5 trillion in 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy. Exports are down, farmers were silenced with billions in subsidies while their crops rot. U.S. tariffs and sanctions to most countries are the main sources of funds for the U.S. Treasury.
The trade war with China has seriously hurt American consumers, who have to pay higher prices for anything coming from China. Hundreds of billions of dollars in import tariffs collected by the Border Patrol agents at the points of entry are paid in full by American consumers. International trade agreements are pending, no one trusts an incompetent and inept bully.
War on climate
Dr. David Suzuki, a renowned Canadian geneticist and ecologist, says humans differ from other mammals in two ways. Humans have a big brain and they think about the future. Our future is uncertain and most of our representatives think no further than 2020. They are not worried about the climate emergency or the 2030 tipping point.
Age of Enlightenment
The world is a scary place. For early humans, droughts and floods were caused by gods.
Science changed the ancient ways. The Age of Enlightenment took over in Europe during the 18th century. Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion and gravity. To explain how fast an object falls, like an apple from a tree, Newton found the speed increased every second. He invented calculus to describe the speed at any one moment.
The Scientific Method was developed to decide, based on careful observations over long periods of time, when to reject a hypothesis and look for a better explanation. Only when a hypothesis can’t be rejected, can scientists claim the new theory is valid.
War on science
Without science, we would be left with myths, miracles, and magic.
Trump’s war on science started during his first month in office, with the removal of climate information from government websites.
On May 2018, Trump killed the $10 million NASA Carbon Monitoring System which tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of the planet’s flows of carbon.
The false claim that wood pellets are carbon-neutral bioenergy, spread by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (AR-R) and U.S. Senator John Boozman (AR-R), is driving deforestation and the expansion of pellet mills in NC, AR, and MS. A massive fiscal 2018 federal spending bill urged the heads of the EPA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture, to adopt policies promoting deforestation.
The false claim that burning methane (natural gas) reduces carbon dioxide emissions is increasing the number of pipelines from shale formations and the Permian Basin. $30 billion of Liquified natural gas terminals on the Gulf, in the path of massive floods and hurricanes, are under construction.
The Department of Agriculture is burying government-funded studies that show the dangers of the climate emergency. “The USDA is suspending tracking the plunging honeybee population. Critics say the USDA’s move is the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s war on science, and its goal of suppressing information about serious environmental harms increasing under Trump’s presidency.” Huffington Post, July 2019.
In June 2019 the EPA rolled back the Clean Power Plan allowing increased carbon dioxide emissions.
Back to flat earth?
The GOP ignores climate science and pretends the U.S. economy trumps all life on earth. False, cost-benefit does not apply for existential threats.
Fast, effective solutions to the climate emergency are needed now.
Dr. Luis Contreras
Move wherever else you think is better or quit fucking whining!
EPA is making false claims on air quality and the economy.
EPA ignores the alarming increase in carbon dioxide and methane. CO2 and CH4 are deemed unimportant.
To make their case, they go back to 1970 and say “between 1970 and 2018, the combined emissions of six key pollutants dropped by 74 percent, while the U.S. economy grew 275 percent.”
“Air Pollution Trends Show Cleaner Air, Growing Economy”
WASHINGTON (July 17, 2019) — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its annual report on air quality, tracking our nation’s progress in improving air quality since the passage of the Clean Air Act. “Our Nation’s Air: Status and Trends Through 2018” documents the considerable improvements in air quality across America since 1970.
“One of America’s great but untold environmental success stories is that we have made – and continue to make – great improvements in our air quality, thanks largely to state and federal implementation of the Clean Air Act and innovation in the private sector,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Emissions of all key air pollutants dropped between 2016 and 2018, and lead and sulfur dioxide concentrations dropped by double-digit percentages during the same period. The U.S. is a global leader in clean air progress, and we’ve proven that we can protect the environment while growing our economy.”
The report released today shows that, between 1970 and 2018, the combined emissions of six key pollutants dropped by 74 percent, while the U.S. economy grew 275 percent.
From 2016 to 2018, emissions of key air pollutants continued to decline:
Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) ↓ 8.7 percent
Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) ↓ 1.9 percent
Particulate Matter 10 (Including lead) (PM 10) ↓ 1.2 percent
Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) ↓ 7.8 percent
Carbon monoxide (CO) ↓ 7.2 percent
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) ↓ 3.3 percent
Explore the report and download graphics and data here: https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2019/
May 2018 — A NASA program, the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) that cost $10 million per year to track carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, has been cancelled.
CMS tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of the planet’s flows of carbon.
The CMS cuts jeopardize efforts to verify the emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate deal.
“If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” canceling CMS “is a grave mistake.”
Trump’s administration has quietly killed the CMS,” the latest in a “broad attack on climate science” mounted by the White House.
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-white-house-cancels-nasa-greenhouse.html
The U.S. booming economy may be the bigest lie (so far)
“US deficit to hit record high, surpassing $1 trillion in 2019” July 17, 2019
https://news.yahoo.com/us-deficit-hit-record-high-203431409.html
According to a study the trade tariffs for products imported from China and other countries, are paid American consumers, not by China. For 2018, Americans paid $1.4 Billion per month in increased prices.
To put this in context, the 2017 Tax Cut, $1.5 Trillion per year = $1,500 Billions per year. This explains why the Treasury, even with the tariffs (the Trump Tax) flowing every day, is running out of money and needs permission to borrow even more. The current deficit is over $850 Billion and may reach $1 Trillion in 2020
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/ny-fed-trump-tariffs-costing-us-consumers-1point4-billion-per-month.html