Keegan D. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Illinois–

The audience of this paper is and always will be the working class, however today we have a clear message for those in the bourgeois class headed by the Trump regime: your weapons cannot save you. The internal contradictions of capitalism are sharpening, and the use of weapons production and increases in exploitation cannot prevent a crisis forever. 

Amidst the economic and political turmoil of the current era of capitalist decay, congressional Republicans and the Trump regime are currently in the process of passing a new tax bill termed by Trump as the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” This bill is nothing short of direct act of class warfare against the working masses by the current administration. The bill includes drastic cuts to Medicare and food assistance programs through the implementation of work requirements in order to receive benefits, as well as through direct cuts to healthcare services like Planned Parenthood, targeting both reproductive resources and gender-affirming healthcare. These vicious cuts have been estimated to result in approximately 14 million Americans losing their health insurance over the next 10 years, and 11 million Americans losing their food security.

Additionally, even “populist” provisions in the bill such as the often-advertised “no tax on tips” policy, championed by Republicans and Democrats alike, ultimately serve capitalist interests. This policy forces workers in the service industry to become further reliant on tips rather than actually increasing their wages. Worse still, these backhanded “benefits” for the working class are set to expire in 2028, while tax cuts for the capitalist class have no expiration date. These measures essentially work to increase the rate at which the working class is exploited in a sick attempt by the capitalists to stave off a crisis of profitability at the expense of working people’s health and livelihoods.

Included in the tax bill alongside these brutal cuts to social services are further increases in military and border security funding. The bill provides $46.5 billion in increases for Trump’s mass deportation plans, and $150 billion in the defense department’s budget for projects like the proposed “Golden Dome,” which mirrors the apartheid state of Israel’s Iron Dome program and is touted to be a framework for defense against strategic missile strikes.

Reactionaries in the Trump administration and Congress argue that these “defense” and border enforcement measures are being implemented in order to defend against the United States’ foreign adversaries. Beyond surface-level fascist fear mongering, both of these projects’ real purpose is to increase the demand for military production and generate massive amounts of profit for weapons manufacturers and finance capital.

As it stands the only legislative opposition to this bill is from Senate Republicans who, rather than arguing against increases in military and border spending, are trying to add additional cuts to social services before passing the bill onto Trump’s desk to be signed into law. In other words, no bourgeois party, Democrat or Republican, has any intentions of preventing this from passing. To make things worse, the bill also includes provisions which make it more difficult for federal courts to hold government officials in contempt if they violate judicial orders, thus making legal resistance to Trump’s policies an even more arduous.

Austerity measures and military spending are not new tactics employed by the capitalist class to attempt to raise the rate of profit, however it is clear with this bill that the contradictions of capital are accelerating and forcing the capitalist class to implement more drastic policy measures. As a result the bourgeoisie is becoming increasingly comfortable subjugating American workers to worsening domestic exploitation for its own short term benefit, beyond even the last several decades of neoliberal policy. 

It is clear to members of the working class that these increases in exploitation have limits in their ability to prevent economic crises. The workers know that we can only tolerate these conditions for so long before responding with outrage at injustice, as exemplified by recent individual acts of revolt.

Additionally, the weapons being produced which are currently planned to face outward towards vague “domestic threats” cannot be effective at solving the internal contradictions of American capitalism in the long term. These weapons will not save capitalism from itself.

In order for the working class to win victories in the long term and take advantage of the capitalists’ growing weakness, we must organize both economically and politically. Only through collective and conscious struggle can the masses defend ourselves against these grotesque reactionary policies and win our own victories of justice to propel the movement forward. In order to render the weapons of the bourgeoisie implemented by the “Big, Beautiful Bill” obsolete, and to resist fascism’s rise, the working class must unite!

Categories: Economy, Government, U.S. News