Dear Editor,

Trump knows how to make money. Do some of his recent actions violate the “emoluments clause” of our Constitution which forbids government officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments, fearing foreign influence?

Qatar has given a $400 million luxury jet which will take up to one billion dollars to retrofit and will eventually be moved to a future Trump presidential library for his personal use. He has been selling meme coins $Trump and $Melania that directly benefit himself and then holding a “private dinner” to host the largest contributors while keeping the names of participants secret.

While on his trip to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates he negotiated “deals” to help sell Boeing jets and military jets, while on the side, his sons negotiated billion dollar deals at these and other countries for Trump towers and one multibillion dollar golf course in the arid desert. His frequent visits to his golf resorts require the Secret Service, who are charged with protecting him, to rent rooms at these resorts at exorbitant rates. The list goes on. 

Why is it a litmus test for Republicans to fight any tax increase? George H W Bush learned this in ’92 when he acknowledged the large increases to the national debt during his term and passed a tax increase.

Grover Nordquist, the famous Republican influencer, required all Republican office holders to take a pledge to NEVER RAISE TAXES, PERIOD. He lobbied against Bush who then lost to Clinton. The lesson was learned. Now, the Republicans don’t seem to be concerned with deficits. This bill adds to the current $35.8 trillion national debt, when just paying the interest on that debt is now nearly on a par with defense spending.  (currently around $800 billion per year). It’s a problem. The Republican plan only adds to it. 

There have been several pro Trump ads on network tv claiming “They wrecked the economy” and Trump is fixing it. This earns 5 Pinocchio’s. Trump inherited the best economy of any of the developed countries post Covid and has proceeded to tank it through tariffs and mass firings. The ads claim that the bill gives a “middle class tax cut.”

Heather Cox Richardson in her blog, Letters from an American states the main point of the bill is the “$3.8 trillion extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations. Yesterday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that Americans in the lowest tenth of earners will lose money under the measure while people in the top five percent of earners will see a tax cut of $117.2 billion, more than 20% of the tax cuts in the bill.”

All the while Trump has cut the IRS which would have audited potential tax fraud.  

To pay for these excessive tax cuts, Republicans are gutting the safety net which has protected many Americans.

Richardson continues: “Poorer Americans take a hit from the bill because it cuts federal healthcare and food assistance programs to partially offset the costs of the tax cuts. Cuts to Medicaid are expected to leave at least 9 million people without healthcare coverage. Cuts of about 30% to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would be ‘the biggest cut in the program’s history,” 

“More than 40 million people, including children, seniors, and adults with disabilities, receive food assistance.” They are even cutting food banks. Heartless cuts. They rushed this bill through, holding votes late at night because they knew it would be unpopular.  

Also in this bill is the undermining of the clean energy initiatives that Democrats passed under Biden, intending them to be an investment in the future.  Climate change is real, the earth is warming, weather is getting weirder, yet they deny this by their “head in the sand” actions.  One possible reason is corruption; candidate Trump promised the executives of major oil companies that he would de-regulate every Biden initiative on fossil fuel extraction in return for one billion dollars in campaign contributions.  A quid pro quo seems obvious. 

Trump keeps claiming they are only eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Again untrue.  It’s the Republican vision that taxes support lazy Americans and must be cut and it’s too bad for the working class who Trump wooed in the campaign.

What is wrong with the rich paying their fair share?  And why are we now legislating in ways that will increase the destruction of our planet?  

He sold the electorate the lie that he cared about them. One wonders how many folks who voted for Trump now regret their vote.  

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County