Warehouses

$38 billion is a lot of money. The ACA premium tax credits Republicans killed in their One Big Beautiful Bill would cost the government about $35 billion this fiscal year. The USAID budget in 2024, back when they were saving hundreds of thousands of lives, was about $25 billion. $38 billion would replace the Trump Administration’s cuts to food banks, restore the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and AmeriCorp, refund the $2 billion in cuts by the Education Department, and fund research into mRNA and other vaccines over RFK’s objections—for years to come with enough left over for Trump’s green fees, red ties, and orange bronzer.

For the more visual learners here today, a stack of 38 billion one-dollar bills would rise over 2,500 miles high. That’s roughly the distance of Miami to Spokane or Montreal to Panama City. You could pay for 19 crypto CEO pardons. As I said, it’s a lot of money.

The Trump Administration wants to spend this money on buying warehouses, fixing them up, and stockpiling people in them. Some of these people will be US citizens, children, grandmothers, and our neighbors. They will all be human beings. It is an abhorrent, cruel, and venal policy. But hey, at least the private prison system companies contributing to Trump’s various endeavors will make a killing.

Of course, as Warehouses notes, the Administration won’t call them prisons or concentration camps. Motel 666 sounds so much more banal—and accurate.

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