Real Stories. Real Action.

Felicia Ray Owens at the Center of It All.

Republicans’ budget bill slashes Medicaid and food stamps, lets billionaires dodge fair taxes, and unleashes unregulated AI—turning Americans into lab rats in a billionaire-bro experiment without guardrails.

It’s time to talk about women’s economics with attitude. It’s time to laugh at what is often absurd and call out what is dangerous. By focusing on voices not typically part of mainstream man-to-man economic discourse, Women Unscrewing Screwnomics will bring you news of hopeful and practical changes and celebrate an economy waged as life—not as war.

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As I write this, after decades of using Microsoft Word, I’ve been made aware of an uninvited guest, who insists on “helping” me. My “helper’s” name is Co-Pilot. I also have Gemini to help when using Google, whether I want it or not.

Neither Co-pilot nor Gemini has a conscience, a sense of morality or honest feelings. They’ve no gender, tribal or family history or age. They both openly admit their intelligence is artificial. However, The New York Times and I consider much of AI to be plagiarism, or copying what isn’t yours and pretending it is. 

I never asked for either Co-Pilot or Gemini to look over my writing and in fact, am annoyed by AI’s buttinsky habits that interrupt my thoughts and disrupt my attention. 

The Dangers of Unregulated AI

In the news this month—at least before the United States entered another war in the Middle East by bombing Iran— headlines warned us of a national budget bill that cuts Medicaid and food stamps, enabling billionaires to escape fair taxes.

The bill’s 1,000-plus pages contain another dangerous threat: freeing still-experimental AI from regulation, essentially turning Americans into lab rats in a billionaire-bro tryout without guardrails. 

The BBB, Big Beautiful Bill, is actually a Big Betrayal Bill attacking state’s rights, using bribery and coercion to keep states from regulating AI for the next 10 years—unless they give up their broadband funds. 

The [budget] bill’s 1000-plus pages from the Senate contains another dangerous threat: freeing still experimental AI from regulation, essentially turning Americans into lab rats in a billionaire-bro tryout without guardrails. 

State lawmakers have already filed hundreds of bills to prevent AI’s harms. Their reasons for legislating are numerous. In Florida, a mom sued a tech company alleging that its Game of Thrones AI chat bot led her 14-year-old boy to suicide. AI is also being used to target women. For example, “Nudify” apps that undress women in photos are advertised on social media and are increasing in popularity.

AI also encourages a lack of critical thinking skills, causing a threat to both students and teachers.

I could make jokes about congressional intelligence. But this Republican push to pass a ruinous budget comes with deadly consequences. It is predicted to add $3 trillion to the deficit—and that’s without calculating what another war in the Middle East will cost, especially since its “enhanced targeting” for bunker-buster bombs uses AI. 

Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, flew at least seven B-2 bombers, costing $2 billion each, delivering 14 bunker-buster bombs. Their flight was over 18 hours long, at a cost of $150,000 per hour for each B-2. Tomahawk missiles at $1 million each, will add to this hurried attack’s cost.

In their other big rush, Republicans have a goal of passing their budget for bunker-buster bombs by July 4.

No Kings Day Ingrained in U.S. History

July 4, the day in which leaders from the 13 original colonies signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, was drafted and revised by Thomas Jefferson. Its second paragraph is one that most Americans know by heart:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “

The document includes common assumptions for the 18th century, referring to “manly firmness” and “merciless Indian Savages.” But its guiding principles of shared democracy and a tri-partite balance of power—legislative, executive and judicial—inspired the world. 

Those principles were more fully, if still imperfectly, explained in the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789. Getting it ratified by all 13 states took another two years and 10 amendments, called the Bill of Rights, to be accepted in 1791. 

Over our 248 years of vigorously argued history, voting power widened to include white males without property by 1850. It took a terrible civil war and the 15th Amendment to grant votes to Black men, even those previously enslaved. Women had to fight for the vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment passed. 

Even then many Black Americans couldn’t vote until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As for hard-pressed wage workers, a minimum wage was first established in 1938, but its last update was in 2009, still standing at $7.25 per hour. 

So, the United States has never been all that great for big portions of Americans. But we’ve worked hard to create “a more perfect union … by consent of the governed.” Yet a woman’s right to their own body, and LGBTQ people’s right to pledge marital devotion to a loved one, are very recent decisions now being chipped away by our current Supreme Court.

No Kings Day on June 14 brought out millions of Americans for more than 2,000 protests of constitutional violations. Before July 4, I urge you to read the whole 1776 Declaration, which explains the reasons for the founders’ declaring separation from crazy and cruel King George III. They blamed “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” 

The founders submitted “facts” to prove this, listing 29 crimes, with many all too familiar: 

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”  

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”

“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses”

“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us”  

Other facts concerned the King’s waging of hurtful wars and supporting insurrections. Does the Declaration of Independence include a fact of proof against AI’s would-be kings and princes? I think this one fits their coercion to prevent a decade of state AI oversight: 

“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever” 

Here is an antidote to feeling this country’s gone off its rails. This July 4, study up on what facts to prove, as our founders did, our need to denounce any, and all, crazy would-be kings.