As impossible as it seems, it was in high school 30 years ago that I first noticed a quote by Kurt Vonnegut in his classic “Slaughterhouse-Five”: “America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves.”
I can’t help but think of that quote reading news today that President Trump has eliminated the staffing for the federal heating assistance program. This is, of course, a backdoor way of eliminating the program entirely.
President Trump got thousands of votes in rural, poor, cold Maine. There is a very real chance that a lot of those people, their friends and family, will be losing their heating assistance. What will they do? There’s six months to sort things out, and perhaps decency will prevail over DOGE. One thing is, however, guaranteed. To quote a more contemporary classic, “Game of Thrones”: “Winter is coming.”
Jeremy Smith
Old Orchard Beach
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