With better than two-thirds of a century under my belt I keep getting haunted by history. Oh, sometimes I’ll be watching a ballgame and remember the blown call at first base during the World Series with Kansas City. When it snows I recall walking two miles in subzero weather to the grocery store, hearing the excitement when the manager announced that the milk truck had arrived.
Lately I’ve been recalling the Reagan years.
Yes, Ronald Reagan did cut taxes. Yet he crippled the social services world by eliminating scores of grant programs, shifting government aid to block grants and making states less accountable and promoting the notion that poor people – even the ones in wheelchairs – are just plain lazy.
I worked in those Reagan years at the local community action agency, Metroplex. We went from getting paid for services delivered to needy people to a head count fee for “registering” the poor each year. The state’s lone field investigator measured the files with a ruler to see if our claimed counts were correct. (Talking people to come in and get registered when there was next to nothing in it for them was awfully close to fraud.)
Another result of Reagan’s policies: the need for the St. Louis Metro Food Pantry Association.
Reagan’s cuts created a quick, dramatic surge in demand for food and emergency assistance not seen since the Great Depression. The pantry association came into being to help pantries cooperate and publicize the crisis. It was always an uphill hike.
Now we have the second reign of Donald J. Trump at our feet.
Note how the orange one is placing two uber-wealthy men in charge of cutting government programs. The programs must be cut, perhaps by Elon Musk’s announced $2,000,000,000,000 a year, to offset promised tax cuts for billionaires and big business.
It gets worse. Trump promises to end taxation of tips. In the short term that’s great for barmaids. A couple of decades from now when they retire and discover how little Social Security credits they’ve accumulated, well, let’s hope they invested those tips very wisely.
Likewise, Trumps wants to slash government programs helping kids afford college, parents afford housing and states recovering from disasters.
As we’ve seen before, every one will be impacted but struggling families and kids will be hurt the worst. Poverty will creep up, jobs will be lost and needed services will disappear. I’ve watched this movie before and I know the ending.
Alas, those of us who founded and nurtured the pantry association – at least those still alive – are all senior citizens.
Let’s hope enough young people step forward to help soften the blow of Trump 2.0.
Glenn Koenen
Image Source: The U.S. National Archives