{"id":16558,"date":"2025-07-10T16:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T16:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=16558"},"modified":"2025-07-10T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T16:40:06","slug":"and-now-the-pain-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/10\/and-now-the-pain-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"And Now \u2026 The Pain Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1035\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1035\" style=\"width: 195px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1035\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lafe-Tolliver-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lafe-Tolliver-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lafe-Tolliver-163x250.jpg 163w, https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lafe-Tolliver.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1035\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lafe Tolliver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Lafe Tolliver, Esq<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Guest Column<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As expected, the supplicant GOP party voted along party lines to electroshock millions of middle and lower income class Americans with draconian tax cuts to their welfare and health\u00a0safety.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from a few moaners, like Senator Murkowski from Alaska, the holdouts quickly melted away with the hot political breath of Dear Leader breathing down their necks with the usual threats of their being primaried, or at the least being called, \u201cnasty\u201d on his television program, Fox News(?).<\/p>\n<p>Unless you understand that the GOP members of the House are terrified of Trump threatening to turn his pit-bull base of MAGA voters on them if they fail to kiss his ring, the vote was not a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>When you take into account the ages of the senior GOP party and the lip smacking benefits of pay, perks, health care, travel, tax write offs that they earn as House and Senate members, you will know why they always run to Trump when he says, \u201c Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!<\/p>\n<p>They simply could not earn that type of income and living style in the private market\u2026and they know it, so they bow to Trump, sear more of their conscience as they vote against their own constituents best interest!<\/p>\n<p>Trump, who is seemingly visibly losing any credible thought patterns, could care less about the mid-terms, since he is for all intensive purposes, a onetime president who cannot run again.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine the howling and weeping from MAGA land when those SNAP and Medicaid cuts\u00a0hit the fan in their areas and they lose vital healthcare services or see a severe reduction in their ability to get food assistance via the SNAP program.<\/p>\n<p>But yet.\u00a0 MAGA voted for these self inflicting wounds because the vaunted Project 2025\u00a0Project outlined the savage attacks on those two programs that have been serving Americans for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Trump even promised (let\u2019s all laugh here) that he could not cut Medicaid. But of course, we now know what happened with that promise.<\/p>\n<p>My expectations will be that Trump will act oblivious to the egregious cuts that will plainly\u00a0land square in the town halls of so many Americans but Trump will play it off as temporary pain for a long term gain.<\/p>\n<p>As the late poet, Gil-Scott Heron said, this will be, \u201cWinter In America!\u201d\u00a0 A hungry and\u00a0health-starved America will drive up the price of healthcare and subject innocent children\u00a0to food deserts at their schools and after school programs, unless the cash strapped states\u00a0revised their budgets to make up for the shortfalls.<\/p>\n<p>I hope against hope that someone will do an in depth study as to why billionaires and\u00a0\u00a0millionaires and corporations need any tax breaks.<\/p>\n<p>When is enough money\u2026enough? After your second 300 -cruise liner boat,\u00a0what else is on your wish list?<\/p>\n<p>What type of mindset is focused on gutting SNAP programs and energy credits and denying basic healthcare simply because the GOP wants to serve their god, mammon?<\/p>\n<p>It is a depraved and corrupt mindset that is reckless and cruel but yet they applauded themselves when the bill passed!<\/p>\n<p>Who said it best? \u201cIf you do this unto the least of these, you\u00a0 have done it also unto me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For those members in Congress who profess a passing knowledge of the scriptures, they would recognize that statement coming from the mouth of Jesus the Christ.<\/p>\n<p>But for many of those Congressmen and their punitive actions, they would rather serve the dictates of the whore god of mammon than of the god that they profess to worship. Go figure.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lafe Tolliver, Esq Guest Column As expected, the supplicant GOP party voted along party lines to electroshock millions of middle and lower income class Americans with draconian tax cuts to their welfare and health\u00a0safety. Apart from a few moaners, like Senator Murkowski from Alaska, the holdouts quickly melted away with the hot political breath [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[301],"class_list":["post-16558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16559,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16558\/revisions\/16559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16558"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=16558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}