Maybe That’s the Point
The Gist
10,000 public health workers laid off. The Department of Education on the chopping block. Disabled people and working families left to pay the price. This isn’t dysfunction — it’s design.
I don’t know if it’s deliberate, or if they just don’t care — but the result is the same. They’re cutting health care. They’re coming for public education. And the ones left behind aren’t the rich or the powerful. It’s us. The ones working two or three jobs. The ones barely hanging on. The ones they won’t save. And maybe… maybe that’s the point.
This week, the Department of Health and Human Services laid off more than 10,000 employees across its agencies — from the CDC to Medicaid offices to public health outreach teams. One email ended their service: “You are hereby notified that you are officially separated from HHS.” The Supreme Court cleared the way on July 8, and by July 14, it was done. These weren’t just bureaucrats — they were the frontline staff for everything from rural health clinics to child welfare programs. That’s fewer caseworkers, fewer inspectors, fewer safety nets. Medicaid, SSDI, HCBS support systems — all impacted. But let’s be clear: Congress didn’t lose their health insurance. The wealthy didn’t lose their concierge doctors. We lost the people who kept us from falling through the cracks. And they know the disabled will be the first to pay the price.
And while they’re gutting health care, they’re dismantling education too. The Department of Education is on the chopping block — not in theory, not in a think tank white paper, but in real policy. Entire programs defunded. Federal protections rolled back. They want to hand public money to private schools and let the rest of the kids sink — our kids, your kids. The ones left behind won’t just lose opportunities. They’ll lose access — to books, to counselors, to safe buildings, to any shot at college. And if your child has a disability? Good luck. IDEA protections are being targeted, too. Fewer students will go to college. More will leave high school unable to read critically, much less recognize how badly they’re being screwed. That’s the point. A sick population can be controlled. An uneducated one won’t even know it’s happening.
Some still want to believe this is just government dysfunction. Bad priorities. Budget battles. A system too big to run well. But at some point, you have to stop calling it neglect and start calling it what it is: design. These cuts aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re coordinated. Strategic. They take away what keeps people healthy, aware, and equipped to fight back — and they do it with precision. You don’t need barbed wire if people are too sick to stand up and too uninformed to know why they’re on their knees.
We need to stop pretending this is normal. Stop waiting for someone else to say it louder. This is what controlled decline looks like — managed by courts, signed off by Congress, and sanitized by the news cycle. But just because it’s happening quietly doesn’t mean we have to be quiet about it. Call it what it is. Tell the truth to anyone who will listen. And if they won’t listen — tell it anyway. We still have our voices. For now.
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