Today is Thursday, January 16, 2025. Here is an article about the very people who voted for the incoming president who could be severely impacted by his ruinous policies once Chump takes office. The CNN online article is written by Majilie de Puy Kamp, Casey Tolan, Yahya AbouGhazala, and Kyung Lah and is entitled “Teacher layoffs, bigger classes: Potential federal education cuts could hit GOP’s base hardest,” and it details how the residents of the community of Pineville, Kentucky, could be negatively impacted by Dump’s economic policies. The community is part of Bell County, which originally housed the coal mines that employed a large percentage of the population. But those mines have since closed and many residents are now facing few well-paying jobs and few prospects. Many of its residents now live in poverty among empty storefronts and the stunning vistas of the Appalachian Mountains.

This is the sort of place where president-elect Dump’s “America First” message resonated – but also where some of his proposed policies could hit hardest, especially his promise to eliminate the Department of Education and slash federal funds to public schools.

Bell County’s school district typically receives 10 percent of its budget from federal dollars, though it has been higher in recent years due to COVID-19 relief funds. Even a slight reduction in those dollars could have devastating effects for students and their families, said Tom Gambrel, the district’s superintendent. It would mean teacher layoffs, bigger classroom sizes, and less attention for their most vulnerable students.

A CNN analysis found that all of the 15 states that relied mostly on federal support for their public schools in 2022 voted for the wanna-be dictator. Even the superintendent of the district, Tom Gambrel, indicated he voted for Dump, but he hoped that the president-elect’s plans to cut federal education funding won’t come to pass. Let’s hope for his conscience this doesn’t come to pass, but if it does, he noted that it would be “catastrophic.”

The schools in Bell County provide a lifeline to families in more ways than one. The district is one of the biggest employers in town and is one of the only places where parents can find after-school care. The schools are also places where kids come to stay warm and where they eat most of their meals. All of Gambrel’s students qualify for free breakfast and lunch and some go hungry if they don’t come to school.

As for what Dump could eventually do once he’s in office, its his critics who warn that Republicans have long proposed slashing federal education funding, and now that they have the House and Senate, there’s no one really stopping them if they propose such drastic cuts. In 2023, House repugnicans faced heavy pushback when they proposed an 80 percent cut to Title I, a program that largely pays teacher salaries in low-income and underserved communities. Last year, they proposed a 25 percent cut to the same program. Now it appears that repugnican-led policies are more likely to succeed under a second Dump administration, so woe betide to those rural schools like those in Bell County.

Gambrel said about 10 percent of his teachers are funded through Title I and Title II, another federal program, and losing that federal support would have significant implications.

Even if the incoming president is basically vague about any concrete proposals regarding education – of course, he is – it’s the experts who point to Project 2025 that provides more specific guidance. This bulky 900-page document, commissioned by the Heritage Foundation, lays out a blueprint for the next repugnican president to shape all corners of American society, including education, God help us.

What is especially ludicrous is the claim that Dump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, but it’s been established that at least 140 people who worked in the first Dump administration had a hand in Project 2025, according to a CNN review, including more than half of the individuals listed as authors, editors, and contributors.

Also, one of Chump’s first decisions as president-elect was to tap Tom Homan, a Project 2025 author and the architect of Drumpf’s controversial family-separation policy in his first administration, as “border czar.” He also nominated key Project 2025 author, Russell Vought, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, in addition to about a half-dozen other high-profile jobs he’s given to people involved in the plan. So don’t believe the malignant liar when he says he doesn’t know what Project 2025 is.

So here is an early example where Dump’s proposed policies could hurt his loyal base directly in the gut and will impact their children.

Most federal programs for public schools are meant to level the playing field for students, providing a monetary boost to communities with high needs but a small tax base due to low incomes, low property values, or limited tax revenues from businesses.

In addition to the county’s high poverty rate, there is a raging opioid crisis that has wreaked havoc on families in the community, Gambrel said. On top of that, he added, nearly 20 percent of students in the district have special needs.

Gambrel said the looming budget cuts and concern for his students and staff keep him up at night.

“Every time we get a cut,” he said, “we’re going to have to change something, we’re going to have to provide less for our students.” With this possible scenario about to affect this struggling community in Kentucky (one of the states we briefly visited on our recent road trip), there could be many, many other communities across the land poised to feel the same terrible impact of the soon-to-be president’s heartless policies. Good luck to that, I say.

And so it went!