White House Rules

White House Rules

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As the economy coils rapidly into a recession, the Bush administration is using its regulatory power to cut the legs out from under already-floundering state finances and shift $50 billion in federal Medicaid/Medicare spending onto state budgets, the House reported yesterday.

Since his election, Bush has made no bones of his opposition to entitlement spending, and these days, Bush is pummeling away at such programs with an ever more vigorous hand. In 2006, he proposed cutting $60 billion over 10 years for Medicaid. In 2007, Bush pushed $77 billion in cuts to Medicaid/Medicare spending over the next five years. This year, as Bush prepares to leave office, his proposed cuts to Medicaid/Medicare’s five-year budget have swelled to $200 billion.

It goes without saying that the growth in U.S. healthcare spending (which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projected last week will balloon to $4 trillion in the next 10 years) has to be checked. But unilaterally using the executive’s regulatory power to roll back entitlements blindly forces states to either pony up (no easy feat when 21 states face budget shortfalls) or, more likely, simply cut people from their rolls.

The first new rule took effect yesterday; without Congressional action, the second will go into effect in May. Four states are suing the White House to stop their enactment.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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