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ACCORDING TO LIZ - “l’État, c’est moi” – literally “I am the state” – was reportedly the Sun King Louis XIV’s retort to France’s parliament when it tried to curb the excesses of his governance-by-edict.
An overt statement of totalitarianism, echoed recently in Washington with the American president’s absolute refusal to rationally consider the impact of his actions on the budget or the well-being of the American people.
Trump’s only interest appears to be his personal accretion of wealth and fame through the gross manipulation of those on whom he relies to maintain his power – the Courts, the billionaires, and the have-nots whose anger he continually prods.
It’s no wonder that corruption is endemic in his authoritarian-style administration with funds of the oligarchs paid out in return for the passage of legislation favoring their personal profitability. A closed cycle detrimental to democracy.
Big tobacco throws billions at Trump and his Republican sycophants, and Trump orders the FDA to approve sale of their addictive, dangerous products, marketed primarily to young, easily manipulated consumers.
Trump buys over a million dollars of Dell stock then the Pentagon announces a $9.7 billion contract with the company.
Miami-Dade College transfers real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to the state of Florida so it can “sell” it for $10 to Trump for a presidential library that will become a museum-cum-resort-hotel profit center.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission stomped on, was compelled to dial back enforcement, and promote cryptocurrency and the prediction markets’ industries which both funded Trump’s re-election and from which his family is making out like gangbusters
Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system, symbolic of his military genius, would cost $1.2 trillion to create, deploy, and operate over the first 20 years of its existence.
Trump’s ICE crackdowns to repay his immigrant-phobic MAGA-voters could cost the country half a trillion in lost taxes over 10 years.
The $72 billion ICE bill ping-ponging around Congress has no requirement for reforms, accountability, warrant requirements, nor training standards but added$1 billion for the Secret Service to add “security” to the White House i.e. Trump's new ballroom that Republican senators tried to frame as a top legislative goal.
More than $11 billion ear-marked to ram through a Trump 2.0 super-surveillance border wall, paralleling lower-tech pre-existing portions, wantonly destroyed the millennium-old archeological artifact known as Las Playas Intaglio etching in the Sonoran desert as well as native American sacred spots along with protected ecologically sensitive desert habitats.
The cost of Trump’s refurbishment of the iconic Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial, a public space revered as the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, before July 4 and painting it “American flag blue” has grown from its original $1.8 million to $6.9 million. Federal records now price tag it at $13.1 million – including an obscenely excessive 20 percent for profit and equally uncalled-for 20 percent for “overhead” – and rising.
Da Prez now asserts taxpayers will be on the hook “for less than $20 million.”
Furthermore, the quality of the work is, at best, questionable. It’s cosmetic and doesn’t address any of the underlying structural problems, essentially reflecting the disaster of this administration.
How much will it cost to mint the gold coin, redesign the passport template, and produce that $250-bill, all with Trump’s foolish face?
How much has been sunk in scheduling and advertising of Trump’s Freedom 250 concerts that he is now replacing with... himself, claiming he gets “larger audiences than Elvis” anyway?
What about the costs of constant visits to Mara Lago, and the security details required to accompany him, and family members jet-setting around the world to set up financial empires, procuring bribes to enrich themselves in their supposed role as emissaries and peacemakers?
The Senate Banking Committee just endorsed the Clarity Act, broad new regulations for digital currencies reversing previous more prudent policies. The language was framed by the crypto-companies which funded Trump’s ride back to the White House as well as feathering his newly minted personal fortune.
Then there’s the now-up-in-the-air $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump hangers-on who claim they were targeted by the Biden administration, what Jamie Raskin called a “fraud on the American taxpayer to line the pockets of [the president’s] MAGA political allies”.
Escalating the financial drain on the Treasury which was, as Raskin put it, “another installment” in Trump’s “ongoing effort to turn the federal government into a personal cash machine for his unpopular extremist movement” and insulting to the American public given that it was purportedly in settlement of the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Flying in the face of the IRS having already crafted a rebuttal calling out the lawsuit’s flaws. The top lawyer at the Treasury Department – the source of the money – promptly resigned. Perhaps he has some morals.
As does Federal Judge Kathleen Williams of Florida who sided with 35 former federal judges who successfully argued the litigation dismissal amounted to collusion, an attempt to avoid judicial scrutiny which would reveal, among other matters that, based on audits of previous returns, Trump might owe as much as $100 million to the IRS.
At a time when Republican policies allowed major American companies to avoid at least $40 billion in income taxes, while American consumers are eating $60 billion in extra energy costs driven by Trump’s illegal war on Iran, which continues to devastate the Middle East and economies around the world.
Vis-à-vis the war he picked with Iran to prove his political prowess, our country’s leader let slip that he “doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”
That the dominoing pain of sky-high gas prices and ever-escalating inflation has never been a consideration in the president’s peabrain.
Then there are the physical testimonials to – and reminders of – his insecure ego:
* the Golden Arches – definitely a McMansionized monument but, no, not a shrine to his favorite food
* the destroyed White House wing, the Rose Garden lawn backfilled by pavers, and the gauche gilding of the White House interior
* the Qatar flying palace that taxpayers are paying to convert for our king
* adding his name above Kennedy’s to the Center for the Performing Arts then closing it for “refurbishment” as cancellations by performers kept flooding in – albeit recently reversed by another judge not yet quivering in fear
* his pursuit of adding his face to Mount Rushmore
* an unprecedented military parade certain to come this July along with the Roman Empire gladiatorial-style extravaganza for America’s 250th anniversary including installing an entirely inappropriate UFC fight arena at the White House
And Trump’s more intangible costs to the American public:
* those of putting his inexperienced and poorly advised buddies in positions of power
* those of ongoing lawsuits against people he personally dislikes
* those of crimes committed by those whose sentences he commuted
* those of allowing RFK Jr to repeal vaccines and curb antidepressants, threatening health care and increasing costs, turning more Americans to ChatGPT, MD
* those paybacks: halting the transition away from fossil fuels, boosting exploitation of natural resources, exacerbating health issues, and damaging the environment
* the embarrassment of the self-eulogized GOAT’s portrait on motorized rickshaws in India
It’s not only the cost, it’s the ongoing desecration of monuments to America’s greatness purveyed by the tawdry narcissistic real estate loser from New York.
The constant monetization and branding of what used to be great.
And the elevating of epic authoritarianism and selfish greed as the epitome of American leadership.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
