The Billionaires Don't Have To Feel The Pain
- jim Young
“The Government cannot afford to have a country made up entirely of rich people, because rich people pay so little tax that the Government would quickly go bankrupt. This is why Government men always tell us that labour is man's noblest calling. Government needs labour to pay its upkeep.” - Russell Baker
On Feb 2, Speaking about tariffs, Trump warned Americans, “We may have short term, some little pain and people understand that.”
In addition to the “pain” the American people are expected to endure from the tariffs, Trump’s henchman, the richest man in the world, has fired or let go 30,000 government workers. I’m sure they will “understand” there might be some short term “pain” too.
Trump on the other hand has been golfing 25% of his first 69 days in office (9 out of the 10 weekends) at a cost of over $26 million (estimated using 2017 costs) to the taxpayers, including the costs of security and the use of Air Force One. It doesn’t look like Trump is feeling any of this “pain”.
While it’s been confirmed that Trump donated at least some of his salary back to the government as promised during his first term in office, it is unknown at this time if Trump intends to do this during his second term.
Of course it’s easy to donate your salary (which is a tax deduction for a billionaire) back to the government when your companies are overcharging the same government for your visits to your own resorts.
And that’s not counting the millions of dollars spent for Trump to attend the Superbowl and Daytona 500.
I don’t begrudge Trump some recreational time away from work like everyone else, but everyone else doesn’t charge the expenses for their days off back to their employers, which in Trump’s case is the American people who he is expecting to bear the “pain”.
Is it fair to ask the American people to “understand” why they have to bear the pain when the one who is causing this pain continues to live his life of luxury at their expense?
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