“We’re seeing an increase in federal layoffs at nuclear contamination sites in eastern Washington,” read the headlines for the past week.
Stimulated by an Elon Musk-led cost-cutting fuss, the Department of Energy significantly cut 16% of managers overseeing cleaning of the old Hanford nuclear bomb manufacturing plant last month.
Hanford’s site manager predicts more massacres are coming. “I don’t think we’ll be in the end.”
This has confused the locals. The newspaper Tri-City Herald recently exploited Rep. Dan Newhouse, U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse of R-Sunnyside, what he has done nothing to stop it.
“Residents of Washington’s Fourth Congressional District didn’t vaguely elect Newhouse as President Donald Trump is dismantling the federal government,” the editor said.
To what I wondered: Did they not?
The 4th Congressional District is a strip in central Washington, operating from Canada to Oregon. It is the nation’s redest division, and just voted for Trump with a landslide margin of 21 points.
Trump explicitly campaigned on federal programs and bringing chainsaws to civil servants. Before the election, he said Musk would become his “cost cutter secretary,” and the two promised to hack “at least $2 trillion” from federal spending. This is about 30% of the total budget.
Where did the fourth best residents think the money comes from?
The fourth is well-known for being the most government-dependent part of the state. It’s basically a company town, and the company is Uncle Sam.
In part, this is due to the Hanford Project, which costs $3 billion a year. In part, it is a system of federal dams and landfill projects that provides subsidized irrigation water to the farm. But it is also the location of the state where residents rely most heavily on government assistance programs.
Example: 38% on the fourth day are enrolled in Medicaid, a low-income health program. This is a much higher percentage in the state. In contrast, Seattle’s District 7 is just 14%, according to the Washington Department of Health.
But Republicans led by Trump, including the fourth Newhouse, are cutting back on budgets that if hired, would lead to massive Medicaid cuts.
Or get an education. Trump campaigned by shutting down the federal department of education completely. Which Washington area relies most on spending from that sector? Fourth.
The fourth anti-government politics has been paradoxical for decades. Fifteen years ago, the lawmaker was a leading national critic of the 2009 federal “stimulation” program, aiming to jump America from the Great Recession. With the exception of all 435 council districts, what has gained the most economic strength from that stimulus is more than $3,700 per person? You guessed it.
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, is doing what Newhouse doesn’t – fighting crazy with the worst cuts mentioned above that over-target his district. But recently I’ve been thinking about it. Voters out there continue to ask for all of this. So why not have them take it?
Like Senator Maria Cantwell, he correctly pointed out last week that tariffs in Trump’s first term cost Eastern Washington farmers millions, exacerbating repetition. It’s a “nightmare for our farmers,” she said.
OK, but Trump pledged endlessly in a campaign that imposes big tariffs, and farmers tended to support him anyway. Certainly, is there anything more predictable than this nightmare?
I continue to read interviews with those Trump voters who have been fired, or their families, who have been deported or their businesses have been whipped by tariffs. My knee reaction is the same as in District 4. What were you expecting in the world?
So part of me says: Let’s have it. What is going on, and what will happen?
This is a terrible impulse on my part. It suggests an unsettling lack of empathy. But I see it being repeated everywhere – “effects and want to know” knows that it’s not just me. I’m calling it myself. Because it feels like a deficit of empathy, or a complete Shaden Fluid.
The federal budget must not be banged and be of the right size. Ideally, it will happen through a combination of targeted cuts and tax increases for businesses and rich people. That’s what they did in the 1990s – the last time the federal ledger was not deep in red.
I’m against what Republicans are pushing right now. As Murray properly explained it, the rich are queued for massive tax cuts despite the deficit. Civil servant workers are “dismissed on a whim because they don’t have any clue as to what the two billionaires are doing and don’t mind learning.”
But again, isn’t this a signed up by Trump countries? That’s what he said he would do. Certainly, chaos and his kingly respectfulness can lead to the rule of law, but it was all easily foreseeable based on Trump’s style of governance for the first time.
Return to my struggle to sympathize with District 4: I know this is wrong. In fact, it’s even worse – it’s indeed Trumpian. That’s exactly how he treats my city, places like Seattle. Not as a diverse and unique corner of America defined by a common humanity, but only by its dominant political stripes. It is another form of wall construction.
So I’m back from vacation and engaged in the Sisifean challenge of our moments. That’s to avoid confiscating any principles I left with this man.
