This is how broken our country is right now—finding a cure for Alzheimer’s is less important to the people in charge than giving tax cuts to their political donors.
1 — Alzheimer’s afflicts 5M people annually, causing unbelievable emotional and financial stress with this incredibly cruel disease.
2 — The GOP shoves through a tax cut to corporations like Pfizer, insisting that it’s “vital” for those companies to be able to make investments, hire new workers, and generally grow the economy.
3 — Pfizer says NOPE, we’re going to lay people off, give a bunch of money to our CEOs and shareholders, and punch out of trying to cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
4 — But that’s okay because the government funds academic research, precisely so we don’t have to rely on the vagaries of private (ie profit-driven) research, right??
5 — NOPE. “The Trump administration has placed funding for government research projects in almost all scientific fields on the chopping block.”
There is no excuse for any of this, and tellingly, none is offered. Pfizer makes no apologies. The Trump administration’s war on science is feted by his core supporters. Only the war is really on the American people, ground up by a cruel and feckless administration unconcerned for the impact of its ideologically and politically-driven policies.
People, 2018 is the year. You need to get involved in your local politics. Get out the vote. Get to the polls. Get informed about the issues and your local candidates. Every one of you is represented by someone in Congress… someone who has a say in all of this. Start voting out the people who enact these cruel policies (ie every Republican in Congress who voted for this tax cut and supports the Trump administration), and by 2020, maybe we can turn this ship of state back to saner shores.