Trump's Team: So Rich, So Clueless About Our Lives

The billionaires tapped to work in the Trump administration are worth $383 billion. You think this billionaire's row has even the slightest idea about the lives and struggles of common folk? Really?

The rich get richer, and the poor get ... well, poorer. What did you expect? The big money folks who are taking over our government under Donald Trump have been doing all right for themselves.

The top 0.1% of households in the U.S. boosted their share of the American wealth pie to 30.8% in the third quarter of 2024, just shy of a percentage point increase from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg News report this week by Alex Tanzi. This comes as the bottom 50% saw their share slide to just 2.4%. from 2.7% in mid-2022.

Together, the billionaires already tapped to work in the Trump White House are worth at least $383 billion, higher than the gross domestic product (GDP) of 172 countries. The net worth of Joe Biden’s Cabinet was about $118 million, according to a Dec. 10 U.S. News and World Report article.

Trump campaigned that he would “rescue our middle class” and fight for the average American. Do you think the billionaires he’s chosen to shape his administration -- and our government, which equates to our lives -- have even the slightest feel for what everyday Americans go through most days? Do you think they care?

If the rest of us each spent $1,000 every day, it would take about 2,740 years to spend just $1 billion. With $1 billion, you could buy 2,273 homes in the U.S., at the median price of $440,000 suggested by the realty firm Redfin. In more than half of American households both the husband and the wife must work just to make ends meet, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And what about the 58 million Americans 65 and older struggling to live out their lives with a certain level of dignity? Many older adults live on relatively low incomes, with one in 10 living below the official U.S. poverty line, which is a meager $15,060 in 2024, according to the Census Bureau.

The average Social Security benefit is around $1,900 per month, but millions of retired workers and their spouses receive less because of lower wages earned during their working years, or if they were forced by circumstances often beyond their control to claim benefits before their full retirement age.

If you think Trump’s Billionaire’s Row cares about them, or even has the slightest idea about their lives and struggles, it’s time to enter the real world.

Already, MAGA Republicans in the U.S. House — supported by the Trump team — are working on legislation to cut a variety of programs that aid everyday Americans in order to offset the cost of extended and expanded tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations, according to a recent report in The Washington Post by Jacob Bogage.

How extensive are those tax cuts? It’s estimated they could increase our national debt by close to $5 trillion over the next decade. Are they needed? It seems our richest folks are doing pretty well on their own. Will they “trickle down” to help other Americans? Historically, as the growing gap between wealthy folk and everybody else shows, that hasn’t been the case.

In the first quarter of 2024, the top 10% of earners owned nearly two-thirds of the country's total wealth, according to Statista.com.

Meanwhile, programs on the MAGA cutting block include the repeal of clean energy programs designed to keep us and the environment healthy, cutting the student loan forgiveness program, eliminating the Education Department (which sends billions to local districts ), ending food stamp benefits, imposing Medicaid work requirements, blocking Medicare obesity treatments (despite myriad health issues it could solve for seniors) and trimming back the IRS (protecting wealthy tax cheats.)

The rich need none of these things, and gain from some of them.

And you know what the craziest thing about all this is? The wealthiest man in America, Elon Musk, is right now deciding for Trump how to cut trillions of dollars out of U.S. spending and eliminate a big share of federal regulations that were mostly put in place, after public hearings, to aid and protect our safety and rights.

Musk grew up in South Africa as the son of a wealthy emerald dealer and property developer. He became a millionaire in his late 20s after starting then selling, for $307 million, an online telephone directory in which most of the initial cost was covered by his father, according to news reports.

This “shadow president” never held political office and, according to research by NBC News, he’s rarely even voted until recently. But his influence with Trump seems to be growing by the day, driven by the combination of his massive wealth (he’s worth more than $421 billion), his online celebrity, his ownership of unique news-maker companies and his monetary support for Trump’s political comeback, chipping in with a quarter-billion dollar campaign boost.

The so-called “robber barons” that controlled American life from about 1865 to 1900 earned that sobriquet by suppressing wages and ignoring the rights of the working man, pillaging rivals and corrupting government in order to build their fortunes.

Now, I’d suggest, the label can legitimately be used once again. What do you think?