In the bewildering blizzard of actions taken by the new administration, one fact stands out: services for working-class and retired Americans are being slashed to partially fund yet another $4.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. To be sure, average workers might see a few extra bucks in their returns, but some 85% of the savings will go to the top 1 percent.*

Since the top .01% of the population already holds six times as much wealth as the bottom half,* there is no rational explanation for this, in particular because it will add even more trillions to our already staggering national debt. One might reasonably ask: How much money do these people need anyhow?

The spectacle of food aid being cut for both hungry children — at home and abroad — and for the farmers who produced this food in order to further enrichen billionaires makes me ashamed to be a citizen of this country, especially since thousands of tons of that food is simply rotting on docks and in silos. If this isn’t an example of “waste, fraud & abuse,” I don’t know what is.

(*Statistics from Robert Reich via Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter.)

Peter Pfeiffer

Solon