In the halls of Congress and on the canals of Venice, the new Gilded Age has a moment
The juxtaposition at the weekend was apt: one big, ugly bill in Washington and one big, garish wedding in Venice.
This is what days of Senate debate over President Trump and Republicans' nearly 1,000-page legislation had in common with the days of revelry at the $50-million nuptials of the world's-third-richest-man, Jeff Bezos, and ever-couture-corseted Lauren Sánchez: an exhibit of excess for a new Gilded Age, encapsulating the gulf between the have-nots and the have-yachts. (Venice's "yacht ports" were reportedly all booked for the wedding, though not by Bezos' own 417-foot-long "Koru.")
The president was invited, natch, but he was a no-show. Consider his legislation his gift to the happy couple. Sánchez and Bezos have much to love in Trump's absurdly titled "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" making its way through the Republican-run Congress. But Bezos' Amazon employees and many of his cut-rate-shopping customers? Not so much.
This may be the most inequitable and overtly reverse-Robin Hood budget behemoth ever. It would make permanent and expand upon the deep Trump tax cuts of 2017 that disproportionately benefited the rich. The multitrillion-dollar cost would be offset by about $1 trillion in healthcare cuts, mostly to the Medicaid program that serves more than 70 million people. Other cuts would end clean-energy projects (costing jobs and ceding the alternative-energy future to China) and slash nutrition programs for the needy.
Meanwhile, spending would increase roughly 15-fold for immigration enforcement,........
© The Korea Times
