Newark, NJ, April 13—A multiracial group of some 30 people rallied here today at the Federal Building to oppose the Trump budget cuts and demand increased funding in certain programs that are on the chopping block. Chants of “No cuts, no way; we’re fighting back today” and “The war-makers say cut back, we say fight back” echoed through the streets. Scores of cars and many New Jersey transit bus drivers honked their horns enthusiastically in solidarity with our cause. The rally was organized by the War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC) and endorsed by a number of other Newark-based groups. PLP joined and showed the continual stream of such policies clearly indicates the need for millions of organized workers to overthrow this system and establish a worker-run communist system in its place.
Trump’s budget eliminates the Home Energy Assistance (HEA) programs. HEA checks keep low wage and unemployed workers’ heat on in the winter, and their air conditioning on in the summer. Many other so-called discretionary programs are being eliminated as well, such as the Legal Services Corporation, which funds lawyers and other legal workers who represent low income people in evictions, foreclosures, benefits denials, domestic violence, veterans’ issues, etc. Other programs are being severely cut, including money authorized through the Violence Against Women law, Community Development block grants, and Section 8 vouchers to help low-income workers pay for housing.
Since Black and Latin employed and unemployed workers, and particularly single women, will be hit the hardest, these cuts are racist and sexist. But white workers, including many who voted for Trump, will suffer too – as is true of all racist and sexist policies. The Trump budget is crystal clear that the $54 billion cuts from “discretionary” funds will go straight into the war budget, which soaks up more than half the federal budget and will increase under Trump. This issue looms large, as the U.S. bosses’ military just announced their use of “the mother of all bombs” against ISIS in Afghanistan that day; they just bombed a Syrian airfield; and a U.S. “armada” is steaming toward the Korean peninsula to threaten the North Korean bosses with obliteration.
One speaker at the rally asked if the capitalist system, which can’t provide basic necessities for women who live in homeless shelters and forces low wage workers to rely on Food Stamps, deserves to exist. Another pointed out that while the bosses spend tens of millions a day in their imperialist wars for profit, they freeze and starve our families at home. That speaker pointed out how the hypocritical liberal media suddenly began praising fascist Trump’s actions as “presidential” when he rejected his own campaign rhetoric and ordered the Navy to launch missiles on Syria. A third speaker talked about how her grandson had been profiled by the cops, as she linked police brutality, war, and poverty to the whole racist profit system.
The 1960s saw widespread rebellions and an upsurge in workers’ struggles. Funding for many of the programs being cut now was won from the U.S. bosses’ government in that era. But like other reforms, they were used by the capitalist system to blunt mass anger against racism, sexism, poverty, and imperialist war, and lend a false appearance of justice for all. Now, in a period of diminished fight-back, these reforms are being taken back. Today, the winds of war are blowing harder. Whatever Trump said to get elected, the rulers of U.S. imperialism are moving ever closer to a military confrontation with rival Russian and Chinese bosses. Increased oppression of the working class is the inevitable consequence of a growing war budget.
PLP fights for communist revolution to eliminate capitalism – the root cause of both imperialist conflict and the increasing impoverishment of the working class. Today’s rally showed that, slowly but surely, the passivity of our class is beginning to change. The first small shoots of the class understanding and revolutionary anger that it will take to overthrow this bloody, profit-driven system are beginning to sprout. As we move on to May Day, let’s heat up the struggle and speed up that revolutionary process!