Austerity, Death by A Thousand Cuts

I guess the average American who doesn't think about politics much will be quite surprised when they no longer get pell grants, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, social security, veterans' benefits, unemployment insurance, disability, ANY food, water and air pollution regulation, earned income tax credits or the like, community medical clinics, community youth programs, services at national parks (or maybe no national parks since they could bring in some money from logging and mining), community services for the elderly, community development block grants, federal financial assistance for schools and roads, publically priced utilities (since they will be privatized and the price goes way up), a dollar that is worth much, any environmental, humanitarian or labor protection from multi-national corporations that will demand (and get) unfettered access to our markets, and a fraction of the money spent on education and public infrastructure including needed sanitation and water quality maintenance and improvements. These things together makes an economic "development" strategy often called Structural Adjustment Policies (and the Washington Consensus) and they've been used with devastating results in the third world for 50 years or more. Now they call it "austerity" as it moves out of the "third" world and into the "first". Whatever they call it, it is a death by a thousand cuts.