Tax policy experts and lawmakers have long circled 2025 as a year to prepare for. What makes it so significant?

For one thing, Federal COVID money to states is expiring, straining state budgets at the same time the economy is starting to weaken. For another, Republicans in Congress are working to increase and extend President Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations — while cutting trillions from health care, housing, and education programs for everyone else. And it all up and you get a fiscal tsunami.

While major tax policy changes are being made and discussed in Congress, this is also happening in the states.

Trump’s self image
-Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer quotes Trump: “I run the country and the
world” (https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/04/trump-second-term-
comback/682573
Trump’s enrichment
New York Time’s journalist Steve Rattner writes on April 27, 2025, how Trump is
the biggest beneficiary of his own chaotic economic policies
(https://stevenrattner.com/article/new-york-times-trumps-biggest-benefici...
himself). He’s worth citing at length.
“No presidential administration is completely free from questionable ethics
practices, but Donald Trump has pushed us to a new low. He has accomplished that
by breaking every norm of good government, often while enriching himself,
whether by pardoning a felon who, together with his wife, donated $1.8 million to
the Trump campaign; promoting Teslas on the White House driveway; or holding a
private dinner for speculators who purchase his new cryptocurrency.”

After detailing the devastating toll of the U.S.-backed genocide in Palestine, I joined my long time friend, famed journalist, host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to discuss my Kucinich Report articles, specifically honing on

I recall seeing a sign in a yard in my small hometown of around 12,000 residents. “No matter where you are from,” it said, “we’re glad you are our neighbor.”

It was positioned defiantly, facing a Trump sign that had been plunged into the neighbor’s yard across the street. It poignantly illustrated the tensions in my rural Ohio town, which — like many similar communities — has experienced a rapid influx of immigrants over the last 20 years.

The sign’s sentiment was simple yet profound. I found myself wondering then, as I wonder now, when compassion had become so complicated. It seems everyone has become preoccupied arguing over the minutiae of immigration that they’ve missed the most glaring and essential point: We are neighbors.

When you’re living in a foreign land, human connections can be as precious as they are rare. Maybe that’s the message of Constance Tsang’s debut feature film, Blue Sun Palace.

Then again, maybe it’s not. Writer/director Tsang doesn’t force an interpretation on you, any more than she tells you what to think of her characters, all Chinese or Taiwanese immigrants eking out a living in Queens, New York. She merely invites you to sit back and watch their stories unfold.

In the case of one of them, their story doesn’t unfold nearly long enough.

We first meet a young woman named Didi (Haipeng Xu) when she’s sharing a restaurant meal with Cheung (Kang-sheng Lee), a somewhat older man who seems to be a good friend and maybe a future boyfriend. The two clearly enjoy each other’s company, and Didi even invites Cheung to spend the night after he misses the last bus home.

The next morning, however, the couple’s relationship seems less certain. When Cheung begins talking about possibly sharing a home someday, Didi jokingly shuts him down, saying her ultimate plan is to move to Baltimore and open a restaurant with her friend Amy (Ke-Xi Wu).