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It’s difficult to take President Donald Trump’s concern about debt seriously when there is a $4.5 trillion tax cut on offer, which will mostly benefit the most wealthy. Little of the last tax cut was used to expand businesses. Instead, it went to executive bonuses and stock buy backs.
Trump loves to talk about President William McKinley and the Gilded Age. It’s worth a ramble down memory lane to remember what it was like for the common man in those years. When millions lived in squalor in ghettos, with no food or drug laws, when we invented wars to steal other nations, when industrialists could poison rivers and the air and clear cut forests, national guard and private armies could be called in to mow down union strikers, when plutocrats paid no income taxes, when the spoils system of civil service reigned supreme, when education above high school was a frill to go to the entitled. And there were no national parks. Who needs them when the wealthy had their estates. No wonder Trump loves that period.
The question is why do we have government anyway. Is it only to facilitate the accumulation of wealth and power for the well-connected a la Nigeria?
I saw an interview with Elon Musk recently. He looked saddened, that people are not buying Teslas and protesting his brand. His loss in value in the last two months is more than Bill Gates’ entire net worth.
It is remarkable to see the richest man in the world taking resources from the poorest. It’s so Gilded Age.
Greg Rossel
Troy