By Robert Dean
Carter County Times
I don’t know where you live, but leaving the house costs $20 in Austin, Texas. And to be honest, I don’t think whatever place you call home is that far off, either. I just went to the grocery store to grab some things. While “girl dinner” is alive and well, I’m doing a “broke journalist meal,” where I eat celery sticks with ranch, trail mix, water, and coffee. Doing the math of how much I could put in my tank versus what I could buy is a delicate mix because I only have so much until I get paid on Friday. And as much as I want to feel special about my subtraction of thought on whether I should buy lunchmeat, I’m not special. Many people are doing more dire math about stretching longer with less. A lot of us are tired of deciding which flavor of ramen is going to spike our blood pressure.
I really try to not make this column about the Adventures of Donald Trump and how his most cultish followers refuse to see what a terrible job he’s doing, but boy howdy, do they make it impossible to ignore. We have to discuss the economy, tariffs, and cutting government jobs. It’s a nightmare out here. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Trump refuses to rule out recession as he’s revising the economy in his vision, which isn’t very comforting. The tariffs are unpopular and affect American jobs. It’s a weird take to slam taxes on your direct neighbors and blame fentanyl despite the proof showing that’s not what’s causing the markets to nosedive and the country to feel like it’s on its tippy toes looking into the mouth of a volcano. He announced them and walked them back, and, in April, will walk them back again, citing they’d made some agreement. All hat and no cattle, as they say in the Lone Star State.
Then there’s the blind celebration of Elon Musk – a nerd who didn’t invent PayPal, who keeps blowing up rockets to no avail, and who has a company of garbage electric cars – overseeing the cutting of government jobs due to “wasteful spending.” We could cut the military budget for endless war, but the grim reaper has rent due. Instead, we hosed park rangers, people at the Veteran Affairs, Social Security, and the Food and Drug Administration. While his DOGE team reports savings of $105 billion, conservative and libertarian think tanks estimate the actual impact to be under $10 billion, with meaningful savings closer to $2 billion, representing approximately 0.03% of the federal budget.
Sick, bro. That pound of turkey I was eyeballing was $12.
All that pomp and circumstance for 0.03% and a mass layoff of 80,000 VA employees. In 2024, Raytheon reported a net profit of $50.13 billion. Raytheon makes bombs. And now, eighty thousand people with families are seen as nothing but a number who get “better luck next time, pal.” Military industrial complex locks in another W while the American worker gets the shaft. Guess bombs are the new “brew your coffee at home” or even better, they’re the new avocado toast.
When did cruelty become the national pastime of America? Despite being unable to prove these cuts were mandatory or beneficial, people online applaud them as if this was a mandate from heaven. It shouldn’t be the worker who bears the brunt of greed, yet here we are. Musk also has been trying to slash Medicare and privatize Social Security. Let’s be clear, Social Security is a right that working people paid into. So, why are some people so eager to please this lecherous cabal of cretins who don’t care about us whatsoever? Tell the lady next to me at the self-checkout counting her change for some groceries. Bet she’s very sympathetic.
Then, it circles back to the family, who are just trying to get something to put on the dinner table. With groceries on the rise, we should be conversing about what it means to get taken for a ride. The country voted for this. But where’s the upside beyond seeing Elon look like a big dork with a chainsaw and Trump come off like a child when speaking about Ukraine? I want to be able to grab an omelet at the dinner; I was told eggs would be cheaper on day one. It’s long past. I’ll be here eating my $16 dinner. Back in 2015 – the high for our little oval-shaped delights? $2.15. If you’re gonna send us up the river on action, do it, or get off the pot, as my mother likes to say. The egg timer isn’t just ticking, it’s going to explode like a lot of our patience for a “Great” America.
The views of columnists do not necessarily reflect those of the Carter County Times or its staff. Send comments and letters to the editor to editor@cartercountytimes.com, or respond in our comments section online.
