40 Truths About 2017 America

1. Trump will never make America great again for anyone making less than $1 billion annually. And, let's face it, for billionaires — this place has always been great.

2. All human beings deserve good, affordable healthcare.

3. No one in this country who works 40 hours per week should qualify for welfare. That is not a livable wage, and it's not the poor person's fault they're on welfare. Blame the greedy business owners.

4. Climate change is real, and if we don't do something quick, we will lose our planet.

5. Getting a college degree should not require one to be saddled with debt totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

6. CEOs are ridiculously overpaid. Unless they're curing cancer, reversing global warming, and/or obliterating poverty, they don't do anything so extraordinary as to justify earning 300 times more than their typical employee. $16.4 million a year is outrageous.

7. Cutting taxes on profitable big businesses and billionaires will NOT create jobs, generate pay raises, or stimulate the economy.

8. Spending 57 percent of the budget on military will not protect us from terrorism or make us safer in any way. It just makes weapons manufacturers lots more money.

9. We need common sense gun regulations. (**Chill. No one wants to take away your guns. We just don't think an AK-47 is necessary to go duck hunting.**)

10. Raising the minimum wage will not cause inflation, unemployment, end of small businesses, etc. It will actually pump money into the economy.

11. Mexicans are not taking your jobs. Your employers are shipping them away to countries with cheap labor, or they're bringing in foreigners to do your job for less money and zero benefits.

12. People on welfare are not where most of your tax dollars are spent. Only one penny of your tax dollar goes to all welfare programs. Stop demonizing poor people.

13. America doesn't need more jobs — Americans need more pay per hour.

14. Just because your Bible or your religion stands against something doesn't mean your religious freedom is being attacked if others don't share your beliefs. Attacking someone in the name of your religion is wrong. Let God be the judge on homosexuality, abortion, and anything else you're all bunged up about. No one is hurting you, so get over it.

15. Citizens United has destroyed democracy. Our politicians no longer represent the best interests of the people who voted for them.

16. Prisons are a big business — hence the war on drugs that made us the nation with the largest prison population in the world.

19. Converting to solar and wind energy would end our dependency on fossil fuels and would provide free, clean electricity and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. The reason we won't... Exxon would be upset.

20. The opioid crisis is a result of Big Pharma lying to doctors and the public. They knew Oxyconten was extremely addictive. They lied and said it wasn't.

21. Health insurance companies do not make money by paying claims. Their CEOs make some of the highest salaries of all the CEOs. They earn big money by refusing to pay for someone's healthcare crisis thus sentencing the person to death or financial ruin. This is why capitalism does not belong in healthcare.

22. African Americans are most often the victims of police brutality and excessive force. Someone who protests this fact by kneeling during the national anthem doesn't mean the protestor is not patriotic or hates veterans.

23. Both the GOP and the DNC are full of crooked politicians who could care less about you or your family. They just want their power and their money.

24. Walmart reported profits of $42 billion but relied on taxpayers to subsidize $6.2 billion in welfare for their employees who were not paid livable wages and not provided health insurance.

25. Hillary cheated to win the primary and Bernie Sanders folks are not crazy conspiracy theorists.

26. The idea that a person who works 40 hours per week should be able to support a family and go to the doctor is not radical, left-wing ideology. It's the fundamental beliefs of decency and logic.

27. If you want to know how a nation is doing overall, take a look at it's middle class. Thriving countries have a growing and developing middle class. Countries who are declining have a shrinking, frustrated middle class.

28. Social Security and Unemployment are NOT government handouts or welfare. Americans pay into both of these things every paycheck. The government borrows against these programs and then acts like it's a handout when it's time to repay the money they borrowed!

29. ISIS is a direct result of American troops constantly invading other countries and killing or displacing millions of innocent people.

30. Most American families are two paychecks away from going under. Over half of all Americans don't even have $1000 in savings.

31. Over 600,000 Americans file for bankruptcy each year because of a healthcare crisis.

32. Evolution is real. The Earth is round. No one knows how the pyramids were built. We really did go to the moon. Just because science doesn't go along with your mythology doesn't make it false or optional. Science exists solely for the purpose of proving what is actual and what is not.

33. Veterans who have served in the military make up 12 percent of the homeless population. Five thousand to eight thousand veterans commit suicide each year.

34. 16.2 million children in the US live in households that lack the means to have nutritious food on a regular basis.

35. Since 1980, California has built 22 prisons and one university. States spend approximately $62,000 a year to incarcerate EACH inmate and about $9000 a year on each elementary student.

36. Since 1978, the cost of...

• College has risen 1,110 percent.
• Healthcare has risen 601 percent.
• Food has risen 244 percent.
• Housing has risen 380 percent.

However, the pay of...

• Typical workers has risen 10 percent.
• Minimum wage earners has dropped 5.5 percent.
• CEOs has increased 937 percent.

37. If minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would currently be around $22/hr. The typical minimum wage earner is about 31 years of age.

38. A billion dollar wall will not keep foreigners from entering our country. America is accessible by sky and water.

39. The average 30-year-old in 2017 currently earns exactly what the average 30-year-old earned 10 years ago.

40. Processed foods containing GMOs are hazardous to human health. Every other modernized country has banned GMOs except for the US.