ArcaMax

America's family farmers were astonished recently to get a jolly tweet from the President of the United States: "Have fun!" exclaimed The Donald.

Fun? The farm economy is in the ditch, with crop prices at depression levels and bankruptcies surging. Plus, Trump Inc. is now rigging the law to give agribusiness monopolies more power to run roughshod over farmers and rural communities.

Well, yes, say the billionaire "geniuses" and partisan hacks who've seized control of farm and food policies, but our phantasmagoric laissez-fairyland ideology will open new agricultural markets here at home, so see? Fun!

Those ideologues, however, can't make chicken salad out of chicken manure, and that's what their promises are. While Brooke Rollins, Trump's corporatized AG secretary, babbles about "new" markets -- she shut down a nationwide market last month that provided a billion dollars a year to family farmers who produce for local schools, food pantries, etc. In reality, Rollins' goal is an industrialized, globalized food economy, so she coldly dismissed these local sales as "nonessential." Of course, that says to all of the people involved that her government considers them nonessential.

Combining arrogance with ignorance, Trump's aloof plutocrats carelessly wiped out this market right at spring planting time! Each farm family has already taken out thousands of dollars in bank loans to buy seeds and other essential supplies to make this year's crop, but -- WHAMMO! -- Trump & Co. slammed the door on the family's most reliable market, shoving them to the brink of broke ... and beyond.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... This is what happens when clueless billionaires are brought in to make our public programs "efficient." Corporate rule is never efficient -- and it sure ain't fun.

CONGRESS CRITTER PROPOSES A RAW DEAL TO REPLACE SOCIAL SECURITY

Years ago, an iconic bar named Another Raw Deal was a regular hangout for us irreverent, free-spirited, political progressives in Austin, Texas. Even those push-button, hot-air hand dryers in its restrooms were political -- printed on the big chrome button was this instruction: "Push here for a message from Sen. Phil Gramm."

Mercifully, Gramm is gone, but political hot air is still gushing from the likes of Rep. Pat Fallon, an Elon-Musk-hugging, plutocratic congress critter from Texas. Lately, however, Pat has been learning the hard way that folks back home don't share his fan-boy crush on the South African billionaire, who is gleefully chainsawing crucial public programs that even Republican families count on. So, Fallon's own constituents are howling at him to do something!

This aloof and clueless "public servant" has erupted in a mad dog attack on the locals! At a recent town hall event in his red district, voters were furious at Musk for targeting the Social Security benefits they've earned. Fallon barked that "no one has said they're cutting Social Security." But one of his voters shot back: "Elon says it every day." Indeed Musk is trying to kill it with lies, falsely attacking it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."

Then, Fallon stumbled into the GOP's briar patch of class bias, curtly proposing "a different deal" to replace Social Security. "If you want to retire," he instructed, plan when you're young and "work two jobs." Of course, millions already do -- and the pay still doesn't cover basic expenses, much less provide savings for retirement.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... Now that's a raw deal! Did I mention that Fallon, a multimillionaire congressman, gets a lavish, paid-for-by-you-and-me public pension?

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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