Sadly, in 2023, we have examples of corporate abuse as seen with the recent East Palestine, Ohio derailment of dangerous chemicals, on a train two miles long, with only two workers operating the train.
Also, in Nebraska, we have early teens doing dirty and dangerous work as cleaning workers in a slaughter house, breaking the child labor laws, and exploiting immigrant children.
How this is possible is due to continued big business and conservative and Republican attempts to weaken federal regulation, as occurred under Donald Trump and earlier Republican Presidents, despite the work of Barack Obama to strengthen such regulation.
The issues of government regulation of business and labor rights were dealt with in the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; again in the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt; and again in the 1960s under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. It emerged again in the Obama Presidency, but then was backtracked on under Donald Trump, as with earlier Republican Presidents, particularly Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
It is essential to have actions to prevent the kinds of tragedies that have occurred recently. The answer is not to attack Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Biden. And the Republican attack on the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other federal regulatory agencies must stop!
This also started with Ronald Reagan’s “Need to get Government out of Regulation of Business. Businesses can Regulate Themselves.”
So the country should ask ourselves, “How’s that been working for you?”
Trump handing out his Trump water reminded me of Trump throwing out paper towels in Puerto Rico.