Trump’s policies will hurt Kentuckians even as he violates Constitution | Opinion
President Trump may not like China, but he follows its maxims: his harm to Kentuckians will lead to “death by a kazillion cuts.” Deep cuts to federal agencies, programs, grants, and contracts will devastate essential services and eliminate jobs in some of the nation’s most depressed, high-unemployment regions.
As Gov. Andy Beshear observes, the Trump Republican quest to slash billions from Medicaid is “an attack on rural America,” stripping health care from millions of low-income Americans and children, including roughly 400,000 Kentuckians who didn’t previously have health care coverage.”
Trump’s willy-nilly hatcheting of our government is cutting far into the marrow of Kentucky’s lifeblood, unlike the studied, practical approach of President Clinton, the only modern president to achieve a balanced budget. Trump has whacked Health and Human Services by 25%, Social Security by 12%, and crippled the Veterans Administration by 17% (around 80,000 employees), affecting healthcare and disability benefits to those who sacrificed themselves for our nation—yes, those who Trump called “suckers and losers.”
Public health experts warn it will likely be impossible to maintain services, especially after $148.8 million is hacked from Kentucky health departments, and his cuts to Medicaid. Trump’s tirade will shrink services as it eliminates jobs.
Most heinous and hypocritical is his attack on children’s welfare. After parading himself as their savior, his war on children is slicing funds for lifesaving child services, including CASA volunteers—Court Appointed Special Advocates—serving abused and neglected children in the court system, and resources for child care, child abuse investigations, and enforcing child support payments. These children are among the least of us; justice screams for our provision of a healthy, safe, and benevolent Kentucky home in which to thrive, not more tax cuts for the well-to-do who seek to privatize every last acre of our public treasure.
His murderous mission against Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) guts care for our poorest, sickest, and most vulnerable citizens. Roughly 638,000 children in Kentucky depend on Medicaid or CHIP for healthcare, and 1.45 million Kentuckians are enrolled in Medicaid or KCHIP, yet Trump endorses cutting Medicaid by $880 billion.
On the economic side, his brainless tariffs, if left unchecked, will destroy the world economy, as they are poised to do to Kentucky’s $9 billion bourbon industry and its 23,000 jobs, soybeans ($1.48 billion), horses, retail, and Public media, with Trump’s unprecedented, vile halt in funding to our treasured KET and public radio stations across the Commonwealth. No part of our economy will be spared the fallout of higher prices and lowered expectations.
Trump’s terror-tantrum also trashes our Constitution and the freedoms and protections enshrined therein. I took my attorney’s oath to support and defend it. And with God’s help, I will, as I was fated to do with my appointment as a guardian ad litem for a transitional teen in a child dependency case. I helped protect his rights and was part of a collaborative process that saved his life, saw him graduate, attend college, and look forward to a life of hope and joy.
Make no mistake, Trump and Frankfort’s attack on our brethren in the LGBTQ+ community and DEI is nothing short of inhumane and immoral. We are called to love our neighbors, all of them. But if love is an emotion too far, at minimum, respect, due process, and equal treatment under our Constitution.
My profession, our freedoms—our duty—to advocate for citizens entitled to full and unfettered representation are under attack by the not-so-gentleman in the White House. For goodness’ sake, he took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, not ravage it whenever it suits his ego or wayward agenda.
But there is hope. Our hope, belief, and prayer are for the president and his team to change course and make wise and just decisions for the peace and welfare of the world. But regardless, Kentucky’s motto has never seemed more apt: “United we Stand, divided we fall.”
As we recall the good values that rally us together, may each side go as far as we must to meet in unity and brotherly and sisterly love.
Richard F. Dawahare is a Lexington attorney.