It's going to be a year...

Well, 2025 started out with violent incidents that few people hope are omens. Then, days into January, billionaires advising Donald Trump outlined government cuts clearly harmful to regular Americans. That was followed by a self-serving willingness to support immigration that would let foreign workers replace U.S. workers, earn less wages, and be virtual wage slaves to the whims of influential employers.

Also on Jan. 1, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said that House Republicans are "doubling down on their extremism" with an agenda that rewards billionaires and large corporations.

“Here’s what I see,” McGovern commented. “Nothing to help workers. Nothing to bring down grocery prices. Nothing to lower rent or make housing more affordable. Silent on inflation and health-care costs. Next to nothing on jobs and the economy.

"Instead, I have no doubt they'll find time to pass tax breaks for billionaires and massive corporations at the expense of everyday Americans."

An American Electorate Voter Poll backed by SEIU and other groups, conducted by BSP Research, showed about 60% of Americans fear that the incoming administration with “promote hate and division,” sparking violence and bloodshed.”

That seemed understandable New Year’s Day, when a 42-year-old Texan and Army veteran who said he backed Islamic State terrorists plowed a truck into New Orleans pedestrians, killing 14 and injuring 15 before dying in a shootout with police. Hundreds of miles west, a 37-year-old Colorado man and active-duty special forces soldier triggered a blast in the Tesla truck he’d loaded with fireworks and fuel outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, shot and killed himself, leaving behind notes suggesting a takeover of Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Trump’s wealthy inner circle is considering butchering the budget not to prevent inefficient spending like the infamous $50 hammer, but to trim enough spending to get Congress to extend Trump’s notorious 2017 tax cuts that mostly benefited corporations and the already-rich. According to the centrist Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump advisers propose eliminating the Education Department, repeal clean-energy programs, impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients to discourage the needy from using it, block obesity treatments from Medicare coverage, enact tariffs (which would cost consumers more since affected importers would raise prices), and cut food-stamp benefits, among other notions.

(Food stamps – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – makes up more than 70% of USFDA funding, but less than two-tenths of 1% of the federal budget.)

Such ideas have dire consequences for public services and working people, according to Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), who said, “The American people should brace themselves for cuts to their benefits and services if President-elect Trump implements his anti-families policies.”

Listing austerity policies such as weakening job safety and labor rules and enforcement, rejecting EPA recommendations, cutting school lunches, outsourcing veteran health care, and eliminating three-fourths of the federal work force, Kelley remained defiant, adding, “We've faced challenges like this before, and we know what’s at stake. We know what’s coming – and we’re ready.”

The non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy has reportedly targeted federal “discretionary” spending, which Congress must authorize. “Mandatory” spending, incidentally, means ongoing commitments, including Social Security, veterans benefits, Medicare, jobless benefits and interest payments on the national debt.)

As for immigration exemptions: When Ramaswamy and Musk aren’t plotting how to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, they’re scheming how to specifically line the pockets of their ilk. But they ignited a firestorm of Tech Titans vs. MAGA faithful through H-1B guest-worker visas.

People across the political spectrum said H-1B workers are used as leverage against U.S. workers competing against tech workers from other countries who accept lower pay and must comply to almost anything or risk deportation.

Journalists report that last year Musk laid off thousands of workers and then requested thousands of H-1B visas for non-citizens.

Musk’s pushback to critics or Trump’s base crying betrayal revealed a petty tyrant when he posted, “Take a big step back and F*CK YOURSELF… I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you ca not possible comprehend.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn’t deterred, saying that H-1B visa are a way for employers to exploit workers and pocket savings.

“The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest’,” he said., “but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad. The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make."

It’s going to be a year.