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The Average Taxpayer Shelled Out Over $4,000 For War And Weapons Last Year

April 15, 2026 Lindsay Koshgarian and Hanna Homestead, Common Dreams. , , ,
Well it’s tax season again. Do you know where your tax dollars actually go? As federal budgeting experts, we get asked about this a lot—often, it’s something people simply have no idea about. But if you’ve watched the Trump administration launch one war after another, flood the streets of American cities with Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents, and call the very idea of an affordability crisis a “hoax” by their political opponents, you might be getting the general idea. Around half of Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities.

Trump Says The United States Can’t Afford Day Care

April 3, 2026 Gary Wilson, Struggle-La Lucha. , , , , , , ,
Stocks fell before Trump finished speaking in his April Fool’s address to the nation. Oil jumped to $109 a barrel. Asian markets dropped. Futures tied to the S&P 500 slid. Borrowing costs rose as the bond market, already strained by weeks of war spending, took another hit. This was not a reaction to the battlefield. It was a reaction to the president of the United States standing before the country with no way out of the war. Trump declared victory and threatened more bombing in the same breath. He said Iran’s military was finished, then promised strikes on power plants and oil facilities in the coming weeks.

Trumpism In The Style Of A ‘Banana Republic’

March 9, 2026 Pilar Troya Fernandez, People's Dispatch. , , ,
The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa’s government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Ignoring China’s Poverty Alleviation Success Is Costing Us All

February 2, 2026 Megan Russell, Scheer Post. , , ,
Over the past month, Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Bilibili have begun dismantling the myth of the “American dream,” replacing glossy imagery with firsthand accounts showing that life in the so-called “laOver the past month, Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Bilibili have begun dismantling the myth of the “American dream,” replacing glossy imagery with firsthand accounts showing that life in the so-called “land of the free” is far from bright and picturesque. In its place, a new concept has emerged, borrowed from video games, when a character’s health drops so low that a single hit can end everything.

End Military Action In Venezuela And Help Working Class Americans

January 10, 2026 Lindsay Koshgarian, In These Times. , , ,
At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re struggling to afford basic necessities, President Trump has turned his attention to invading and ruling Venezuela. One in two Americans are having trouble affording groceries, utilities, health care, housing, and transportation, according to a recent poll. Healthcare costs are rising — and in many cases doubling—for millions of Americans because Republicans in Congress refuse to help. And while grocery prices remain high, those same GOP lawmakers chose to cut food stamps for millions of struggling people.

US: $1.6 Billion For Propaganda, Nothing For Infrastructure

August 8, 2025 Grumpy Chinese Guy, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
The United States has approved $1.6 billion to counter what it calls China’s “malign influence” abroad. The funding goes to foreign media outlets, NGOs, influencers, and think tanks that align with Washington’s preferred messaging. This is not defense spending. It is not humanitarian aid. It is a global messaging campaign, funded by taxpayers. The U.S. says it cannot afford healthcare, housing, or student debt relief. But it finds $1.6 billion to run media campaigns in Vietnam, Nigeria, and Colombia. This is not sustainable. It is not defensible. If the government can find this money for foreign propaganda, it can find the money for clean water in Flint, or housing in Los Angeles. It chooses not to.

Why We Need A Solidarity Economy Now

July 10, 2025 Rick Wilson, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
As people across the United States face massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other vital programs, many are asking: What happens when the systems we rely on fail us? And what happens when our communities are torn apart by toxic inequality, political fragmentation and declining social trust? The solution may lie in something that humans have been doing throughout our existence: taking care of each other, often without realizing it. Today that’s what some of us call the “solidarity economy.” I first heard the term in late 2008, and I wasn’t impressed. I believe the term I used might have been something like “boutique-y.”

Anti-Worker Policies, Capitalism, And Privatization Keep South Poor

June 23, 2025 Nina Mast, Economic Policy Institute. , , , ,
The central function of government should be to protect people from harm, exploitation, and abuse. Yet on this core task, many Southern state governments have performed abhorrently—largely by design. EPI’s Rooted in Racism and Economic Exploitation series1 has shown how for most of the past two centuries, Southern state governments have embraced an economic development strategy—the Southern economic development model—designed to undermine job quality and suppress worker power, particularly for Black and brown workers. The model aims to maintain a pool of exploitable, available labor, and preserve the racial and economic hierarchies established during slavery.

Ongoing Influence Of Slavery And Jim Crow In The South

April 6, 2025 Chandra Childers, Portside. , , ,
The Southern economic development model leaves many workers and families across the region struggling to provide for themselves and their families. They have less access to adequate nutrition, safe and stable housing, and fewer other sources of support to nurture the growth and development of their children. Many children and families in persistently high-poverty areas across the South will not have access to opportunities outside their neglected communities, further reducing the likelihood that their children will achieve economic prosperity.

Washington’s Attempts To Bully China Will Only Backfire

January 16, 2025 Mike Whitney, The Unz Review. , , , ,
China is rapidly overtaking the United States in a number of areas that threaten to undermine America’s position in the world. Naturally, US leaders and their billionaire backers are concerned about this and have taken steps to remedy the situation. Regrettably, none of these steps include an honest appraisal of the western economic model that allows the ‘privileged few’ to skim-off too much of their company’s profits leaving insufficient capital to reinvest in productive activity, critical infrastructure or societal improvement. Chinese policymakers have taken a different approach to this issue and the results speak for themselves.

Trump’s Christmas Message Is One Of Chaos, Turbulence And Retaliation

December 26, 2024 Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , , , , , ,
Letting no holiday opportunity go without stirring up chaos, turbulence and retaliation, by mid-morning on Christmas Day, President-elect Trump posted a series of insensitive, brazen and mean spirited “Merry Christmas” messages on his Truth Social platform. These posts for both national and international issues were followed, predictably, by over two dozen re-posts of articles or other social media posts forecasting his political agenda on topics including troubled Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and his designation of Greenland and the Panama Canal as U.S. national security necessities, tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and reinstatement of the federal death penalty that Biden had suspended.

US Food Insecurity Rate Rose To 13.5% In 2023

September 10, 2024 Michael Long and Lara Gonçalves, Counter Punch. , , ,
The official U.S. food insecurity rate rose to 13.5% in 2023 from 12.8% in 2022, according to data the U.S. Department of Agriculture released on Sept. 4, 2024. That means more than 1 in 8 Americans – about 47 million people – couldn’t get enough food for themselves or their families at least some of the time. This is a significant increase from a recent low of 10.2% in 2021. Food insecurity grew in the two years that followed due to a sharp decline in government benefits, including money for groceries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the program that pays for students to get lunch and breakfast for free at school.

Report Lauds Effects Of Guaranteed Income For Struggling Families

February 6, 2024 Chris Walker, Truthout. , , , ,
A guaranteed income program in Boston, Massachusetts, which began in the summer of 2021, resulted in numerous positive outcomes for recipients, highlights a recently published study by the groups that organized the program. Camp Harbor View and UpTogether, the organizations that dispersed the payments, privately funded the program from a group of 107 donors. Around $750,000 was raised in total, which was given out to 50 families around the Boston area. The families who were chosen to receive funds didn’t already qualify for social safety net benefits, as the program was designed to help those who were “too rich to be poor and too poor to be rich.”

Imagine A Central Income Distribution Institution

November 23, 2023 Matt Bruenig, People's Policy Project. , , ,
Many years ago, I learned that the Faroe Islands has a peculiar process for compensating workers. There, employers pay each worker’s entire paycheck to the tax authority, which removes any taxes owed and then remits the remainder to each worker’s linked bank account. As part of this process, the tax authority also rolls in any welfare payments an individual is owed when making its periodic payments. Beyond these practical advantages, the idea of a central income distribution institution (CIDI) — i.e. a government entity that all income payments are routed through, even factor income payments like wages, dividends, and interest — is useful for thinking through certain intractable philosophical, accounting, and conceptual debates that frequently pop up in the economic policy discourse.

‘Work Requirements’ Or Real Jobs?

July 10, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
When I heard the debt-ceiling deal would target people in their fifties for new work requirements to get food stamps, I thought about my brother. As a young man in the Navy, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes—that’s the one where your body attacks your pancreas, and you need insulin to stay alive. At the time, treatment options were limited, and the Navy discharged him. But thanks to the V.A. and medical advances, he was OK. He’s a talented mechanic, had steady work, and raised two wonderful kids. In his fifties, though, the toll of the disease meant a lot of sick days. Too many for his employers.
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