NSNBC: Trump isn’t cutting red tape. He’s creating more of it for average Americans.

Trump plans would make it harder to get Medicaid, register to vote and pay your taxes.

But when it comes to average Americans, the president and his allies in Congress are fine with making it harder to file your taxes, receive benefits, access government services or register to vote.

Consider a few recent examples:

• The Trump administration plans to end an IRS pilot program that allowed some taxpayers with simple returns to file their federal taxes online for free. 

• In the megabill comprising much of Trump’s first-year agenda, House Republicans are moving ahead with new work requirements to qualify for health insurance through Medicaid.

• The Trump administration developed a plan (since rescinded) to require more Americans applying for Social Security to visit offices in person to prove their identities.

• Another Republican bill would require ID such as a passport or a birth certificate to register to vote (and a marriage certificate, too, if you’re a woman who changed her name).

Let’s call this what it is: red tape — needless box-checking, form-filling and drudgery that accomplishes nothing except making it harder for Americans to get what they need.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-medicaid-social-security-red-tape-rcna207999

Newsweek: Why do MAGA Republicans hate Europe?

In May 1988, Republican President Ronald Reagan spoke from the Oval Office in an address not targeted at the American people, but the citizens of Western Europe. The president was planning a trip to meet with Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and wanted to make his commitment to Europe clear.

Staring directly at the camera, Reagan said: “Shared [moral] standards and beliefs tie us to Europe today. They are the essence of the community of free nations to which we belong.”

Thirty years later, in July 2018, while sitting for an interview with CBS at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Republican President Donald Trump was asked to name America’s top global foe. “Well, I think we have a lot of foes,” Trump said. “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.”

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-republicans-donald-trump-jd-vance-europe-2071814