Tag: bankruptcy
American Farmers

Trump's Chaotic Regime May Bankrupt American Farmers

According to a new report from the New York Times, a "core constituency" is "reeling" from "a rapid-fire array of directives by the Trump administration."

“This isn’t just hippie-dippy stuff,” said Aaron Pape, a Wisconsin farmer. “This is affecting mainstream farmers."

The Trump administration's recent directives have left farmers and rural communities across the United States grappling with financial uncertainty. A series of executive orders have frozen billions of dollars in federal funding for agricultural programs.

The impact is widespread and has created a ripple effect across rural America, according to the Times.

For example, Skylar Holden, a cattle rancher in Missouri, signed a $240,000 cost-sharing contract for property improvements but is now at risk of losing his farm. He laments, "Whenever my farm payment comes due, there's a good chance that I'm not going to be able to pay it."

In another example, Minnesota seed processor Tom Smude learned that his $530,000 grant for equipment was paused, leaving him unable to pay for ordered machinery. He expressed confusion about the president's priorities: "It's what he wants, growth in industry and keep America going. I feel like I'm doing my part and now you're going against what you said, a little bit."

The uncertainty has affected farmers' ability to plan for the year. Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, stated, "Farmers don't need any more uncertainty than they already have."

While some farmers remain supportive of President Trump, many others expressed concern about the long-term consequences of these policy decisions.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Nonpartisan Study Shows Trump Would Bankrupt Social Security By 2031

Nonpartisan Study Shows Trump Would Bankrupt Social Security By 2031

Fox News host and Donald Trump adviser Sean Hannity claims that Vice President Kamala Harris is lying when she says Trump’s proposals would threaten the solvency of Social Security. But according to a new study, Trump’s tax plans would drain the Social Security Trust Fund in just six years, triggering devastating cuts to the payments seniors depend on if no further changes are made.

Trump’s “campaign proposals would dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances,” according to the analysis of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB):

President Trump’s proposals to eliminate taxation of Social Security benefits, end taxes on tips and overtime, impose tariffs, and expand deportations would all widen Social Security’s cash deficits. Under our central estimate, we find that President Trump’s agenda would:

  • Increase Social Security’s ten-year cash shortfall by $2.3 trillion through FY 2035.
  • Advance insolvency by three years, from FY 2034 to FY 2031 – hastening the next President’s insolvency timeline by one-third.
  • Lead to a 33 percent across-the-board benefit cut in 2035, up from the 23 percent CBO projects under current law.
  • Increase Social Security’s annual shortfall by roughly 50 percent in FY 2035, from 3.6 to 4 percent of payroll.
  • Require the equivalent of reducing current law benefits by about one-third or increasing revenue by about one-half to restore 75-year solvency.

Trump adviser and Project 2025 contributor Stephen Moore has argued such changes are good policy because “we want people to keep working. We want to keep incentivizing people once they turn 65, or 66, or 70.”

Democrats, meanwhile, typically favor extending the solvency of Social Security by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans rather than cutting benefits for vulnerable seniors.

Fox News and its right-wing counterparts rarely discuss Social Security because they want Republicans to win elections and they recognize that the right’s proposals are generally politically toxic. When Trump suggested in a March interview that he would consider cutting Social Security benefits — a mainstay of right-wing punditry -- Fox ignored the remarks.

But when Trump’s propagandists talk about one of the most successful federal programs in history, which sustains tens of millions of American seniors, they stress that he and his party are committed to defending it, claiming suggestions otherwise are lies.

“At multiple rallies today in North Carolina, Harris also continued her long-running lie that Donald Trump wants to cut your Social Security,” Hannity complained last month. “But the official Republican Party platform and Donald Trump in his own words over and over again say just the opposite. As you can see on your screen, a complete and total lie from Kamala Harris.”

Hannity may be willing to take Trump at his word, but CRFB’s analysis shows Harris is correct that the former president’s plans would devastate Social Security.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Rudy Giuliani

Federal Judge Revokes Rudy Giuliani's Bankruptcy Protection

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani no longer has bankruptcy protection, which means the Georgia election workers he defamed can now move to enforce the nine-figure judgment against him.

On Friday. United States bankruptcy judge Sean Lane officially handed down his ruling rescinding Giuliani's bankruptcy protection, which means Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss can now levy any and all of Giuliani's assets to satisfy the defamation judgment they won in December.

"When confronted with complaints about a failure to satisfy the Bankruptcy Code’s obligations as to financial transparency, most debtors will respond by curing at least some—if not all—of the defects," Lane wrote in the ruling posted to Bluesky by legal journalist Joshua Friedman. "By contrast, Mr. Giuliani has done nothing."

"The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case," he added. "

After news of Lane's decision became public, various journalists, commentators and legal experts celebrated Freeman and Moss getting justice, and their pro bono (meaning "for the public good") attorneys working on their behalf. Anti-Trump Republican group the Lincoln Project called the ruling "well deserved."

"Congrats to patriots Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss," the group tweeted.

Mediaite contributing editor Sarah Rumpf also lauded the decision, posting to her X/Twitter account: "[H]ope America’s Mayor enjoys the “finding out” part of FAFO [f— around, find out]."

"Sometimes the good guys win," tweetedVanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast.

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli shed additional light on the attorneys representing Freeman and Moss, who are from the international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

"I guarantee you that they will leave no stone unturned in order to strip indicted criminal Giuliani of almost everything he owns & earns," he tweeted.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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