EDITORIAL
Workers Don’t Have to Accept Unending Cuts

May 12, 2025

It’s easy to get distracted and even overwhelmed by the outrageous things Trump says or does. But there is a method to his madness. And this method is shown once again by the budget plan released by the administration on May 2.

In case there was any doubt: Trump’s budget cuts everything that goes to what the population needs, even as those needs have increased.

Young people have not nearly recovered from the pandemic. Learning loss and mental health problems are through the roof, especially for poorer students. But the new budget cuts the few federal dollars that go to schools and childcare in working class and poor neighborhoods.

Remember the pandemic that killed over a million people in the U.S. and hurt the health of millions more? Instead of funding the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health to prepare for the inevitable next pandemic—those programs are falling under the axe. And money for managing Medicare and Medicaid will be greatly reduced, meaning it will be even harder to get someone on the phone or find a human being in an office to sign up or solve a problem. That will make these programs harder to get, reducing even further the health care available to a population that already has some of the worst health among the world’s wealthy countries.

Money to maintain drinking water systems and to prevent pollution of water (and air) is going up in smoke. This, even after thousands have been poisoned by polluted water and failed water systems from Flint, Michigan to Jackson, Mississippi.

As climate change accelerates, fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes have been raging worse every year. But the administration wants to cut funding for disaster relief.

Opioid addiction and overdoses have killed millions of people in this country over the last decades. Trump himself campaigned on the dangers of fentanyl, which is just the latest opioid. But his budget cuts funding for substance abuse treatment.

And even as a growing share of the population cannot afford rent or the most basic bills, the proposed budget cuts funding for homeless shelters, along with the tiny bit of aid available to help pay heating and electric bills.

Of course, Trump’s proposed budget is not final. Like always, he is throwing anything and everything against the wall, and not all of it will stick. But we know whatever budget gets passed by Congress will include serious cuts in the already underfunded services that the population pays taxes for.

These types of cuts started well before Trump. For 50 years now, under Democrats and Republicans, every level of government has been reducing the share of workers’ taxes that go to fund the population’s needs. Well before Trump, roads and water systems were crumbling; education and health care for working class people were getting worse and worse.

For 50 years, the capitalist class has taken this money for itself in the form of tax cuts, bailouts, privatization schemes, bloated contracts, and every other means under the sun.

Trump’s proposed cuts are even worse. Not just because they’re so deep, but because they come on top of all those cuts that have already been made. And the population is already facing one crisis after another.

Of course, like those in the past, Trump’s cuts are going to fund tax breaks for billionaires. They represent another massive acceleration of the degradation we’ve been experiencing now for decades, so the rich can get richer.

But more than that: all the money cut from the parts of the budget that go to services for the population will be used to increase funding for the repressive parts of the government.

Here in the U.S., Homeland Security will get a big bump. There will be more money for federal agents and prisons. Maybe these are supposedly aimed today only against immigrants, but what is used against immigrants can be used against everyone.

By far the biggest amount of money cut from public services will be used for a massive increase in military spending. The budget language indicates that they are preparing to fight China. Although the U.S. is the country with military forces surrounding China and not the other way around, the budget says this money is aimed to “deter Chinese aggression.” And the budget includes big increases for military aid to U.S. allies to “counter China.”

The capitalist class is telling workers very directly with this budget that we have to accept a worse life in order to pay for the wider war they are preparing, whether it’s against China or anyone else. They are telling us to accept even more degradation in our lives so they can dominate the world. And by increasing funding for domestic repression along with the military, they are telling workers in this country that they are preparing to go after us if we get out of line.

All this, even before that wider war they are preparing has even really started.

This budget makes clear the future capitalism is preparing for us. But sooner or later, workers will have had enough of this constant downward spiral—and they will refuse to go along, explode in anger, and throw the capitalists back.