Billionaire Covers Trump’s Army Tab While The GOP Continues To Keep The Government Shut Down
from the shady,-stupid,-and-inadequate dept
A lot of GOP politicians align themselves with Christianity, especially the offshoot that believes the richer you are, the more God loves you. (That it tends to dovetail nicely with white Christian nationalism is just a bonus in these Trumpian times.) But somehow they never seem to be able to spend a dime of their own when people are in need.
Just take a look at Kristi Noem, current DHS head and former South Dakota governor. Noem sent a bunch of South Dakota National Guard members to the Texas border. Later, she refused to spend money deploying troops while her constituents were getting flooded out of their homes. She justified her refusal to spend residents’ tax dollars to help residents by pointing out the trip to the Texas border was actually paid for by someone with more money than discretion. She apparently hoped this would offset the $1.3 million in state emergency relief funds she blew on being performative, rather than on helping out the people who likely voted for her.
It’s always nice to have a few helpful millionaires/billionaires in your pocket. Donald Trump has more than a few of those. With the GOP refusing to negotiate in good faith with the Democratic party on a funding bill, the government remains shut down. Despite the fact that it’s the GOP holding the country hostage, rich Trump supporters who would absolutely riot if anyone suggested raising their taxes are cutting massive checks to cover a few of the administration’s expenses during this shut down.
News about an anonymous donor kicking in $130 million to pay the troops circulated for a bit, thanks to Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut about goddamn anything.
Mr. Trump announced the donation on Thursday night, but he declined to name the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend.
[…]
“He doesn’t want publicity,” Mr. Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefer that his name not be mentioned which is pretty unusual in the world I come from, and in the world of politics, you want your name mentioned.”
The New York Times managed to identify the person behind this generous donation — a donation that can only be considered “generous” in the sense that it never should have happened in the first place.
Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It sounds like a lot, but we’re talking about a government that has been several trillion in the hole for years now. I’d love to see how this gets divvied up because if it’s just divided equally, it’s not going to mean a thing to the troops currently getting screwed by the party that claims it loves them the most.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trump administration’s 2025 budget requested about $600 billion in total military compensation. A $130 million donation would equal about $100 a service member.
Getting an extra Benjamin is nice if you’re already getting paid. When you’re not getting paid, $100 is just enough money to make you resent it. Sure, you’ve got $100 more than you had before Mellon stepped briefly out of the shadows to stuff a little cash into Trump’s coat pocket, but what the fuck are you supposed to do with it? It’s not enough to do anything practical, like keep all the utilities on or cover the house payment or even stock the cupboards. May as well just toss it in the nearest slot machine and hope for the best.
Mellon is a billionaire and a fan of Trump, as so many billionaires are. He’s also donated millions to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vax efforts. He’s also this guy:
In an autobiography that he self-published in 2015, Mr. Mellon described himself as a former liberal who moved to Wyoming from Connecticut for lower taxes and to be surrounded by fewer people.
His book also contains several incendiary passages about race. He wrote that Black people were “even more belligerent” after social programs were expanded in the 1960s and ’70s, and that social safety net programs amounted to “slavery redux.”
And yet here he is, being a social safety net for thousands of troops who may never even see the money he gave to the Trump administration. For one thing, the logistics costs alone would probably eat up a great deal of what’s been donated. For another, this is pretty clearly illegal, which means no distribution will even happen.
[T]he donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.
With that much still unsettled, this may remain in limbo. And that’s probably for the best. The only thing more insulting that gifting troops with a useless $100 bill would be clawing it back once federal funding resumes.
Finally, if we really want billionaires to bail out the government, the easiest way to do this is by TAXING THEM MORE. Let’s not pretend this guy is some sort of quiet hero who did this because he cares too deeply for this country to see soldiers go without pay. He did this because it’s another way to ensure he and the rest of the people in his tax bracket remain as privileged as they’ve always been. $100 can be gone in a second. But influence and access is forever.
Filed Under: antideficiency act, donald trump, gop, government shutdown, military funding, taxes, timothy mellon, trump administration
Comments on “Billionaire Covers Trump’s Army Tab While The GOP Continues To Keep The Government Shut Down”
The real question for me is WHY is Trump so keen to make sure the military get paid during the shutdown?
His attitude is that of a mafioso – he always expects a paying return on his attention and he doesn’t have form for liking the troops that much before
The inferences I draw are threefold: –
1) That he may be planning to use them soon. Either attacking Venezuela or via the Insurrection Act are both options (especially when food stamps are cancelled next week)
and
2) That he’s trying to erode more of congress’s authority by grabbing more fiscal power to himself
At what stage do we ditch the authoritarian tag for this government and start calling it despotism?
Re:
At first, when Trump calling him a friend and that he doesn’t want publicity, I thought it was Epstein, like if he wanted to buying some resurrection police to prevent by force any court doing proper investigation.
Damn, less than a year with Donald and we’re all going for crazy conspiracy theories.
The reality must be very dull: “Remember, you’ve played golf with me once. Today I need $130M. You’ve got 10 minutes. Donald.”
Re:
From the Little Dictators Handbook, chapter 2 “To reduce the risk of a military coup, always pay the guys with the guns first.”
Re: Get everyone to quit
Trump just wants to get everyone to quit, hes trying to pay his people enough to make them quit later. Enlisted obviously cant quit, but even Navy Fed realized this is not a normal shutdown. Ice he needs, so he will find money to pay them.
30 to 45 days was enough stress that ATC started to quit, this time who knows what hes doing with ATC but at 60 days your looking at the end of civilization air travel.
If you cant mass fire people then create a hostile work environment.
Despite the name, he doesn’t sound like much of a friend to the American people.
Re:
I can’t think of a conservative lawmaker who is.
Re:
No one in or supportive of the regime is.
There’s no way the SC would prevent this from happening, so the legality of it is irrelevant.
The fact that troops aren’t getting paid is the fault of congress for not doing their job of appropriating the funds and a president that doesnt sign the bill.
Funding anything by running around congress is removing the power of the purse from congress. It should never be legal to do. No matter the issue.
I hate that troops and federal workers are not getting paid, but this is what you get when you elect incompetent, evil, greedy people to positions of power.
Re:
Can anyone explain how this is even possible? Besides being another topic to pointlessly argue over, why do we have debt ceiling process in the first place? The money has already been budgeted and contracts were signed based on the budget and then congress turns around and says “wait a minute, we won’t pay for something that we already bought/used because we aren’t allowed to go that deep into dept.” It is the rough equivalent of me saying “sorry Bank X, I won’t pay for all of my amazon purchases this month because it is beyond my personal debt limit.” It just feels a bit performative to me.
Re: Re: identifying the wrong problem
The debt ceiling is intended to slow down the growth of the Federal debt. There, answered an irrelevant question.
The shutdown is not a result of a debt ceiling. The problem is that there is no budget, so in fact no ``money has already been budgeted”. Until they pass a budget, or at least a continuing resolution, there is no identied source of funds.
It is also true that the budget process may be largely a series of empty gestures. Congress can pass laws specifying spending but we have seen the executive determine not to see that those laws are faithfully executed.
Re: Re:
Those aren’t things that happened, except when Trump did and tried to do just that, ignoring Congressional appropriation, business contracts, the government workforce, and all the laws.
Re: Re: Re: modernizing the executive
True. Prior presidents did make efforts to see that the laws were faithfully executed. Trump’s failure to do so has led to some controversy.
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We all know who is really responsible for the shutdown...
Democrats.
Re:
Thank you for the thoughtful and insightful comment. Anything else we should know? Democrats are all evil and commie, Republicans are all good and looking out for the best interests of everyone? You are obviously a deep and free thinker.
Re:
Have you ever had an original thought in your life, or is your brain just a non-stop repeat MAGA lies automation? For all the MAGA world talk of “NPCs” you’re the biggest “NPC” ever. All you do is spew MAGA lies over and over again. What a sad, pathetic life that must be.
That will pau the soldiers but certain services are still shut down.
Armed Forces Raddio and TV serfice (AFRTS) is still shut down.
I can get that on the IPTV services I use. Someone is streaming that over once IPTV service that has over 200,000 channels. Between 3 IPTV providers I get about 260,000 channels for abuot $45 a month.
AFN Movies usually provides a good slate of movies.
I wonder what other services provided by the military are not running because of the shutdown
$100 is the price to buy a US soldier these days, right?
Always try to keep up on paying your mercenaries, especially if you are currently using them to go after your enemies and plan on doing so more in the future, otherwise they might start to question just how loyal they should be towards the person who’s happy to use them as thugs but not willing to pay them to do so.
That said I can’t help but laugh at the (probably) unintentional backhand toward the US military here, the idea that $100 a pop would be enough to cover even just food is so fitting coming from someone who’s likely not had to pay any of his own bills for years and therefore almost certainly has no idea what anything costs for the average person.
Finally, something the left and the right can agree on: billionaires should just pay for everything.
The fiscal fucking around has been done. Now comes the finding out. You wanted a government that didn’t need your money. Now you’re getting a government that doesn’t need your vote.
Mercenaries?
Does that mean those in the defense forces paid by private money are mercenaries?
Re:
No worries, I can’t see any possible conflict of interest from soldiers knowing that their paychecks depend entirely upon keeping the obscenely wealthy happy with them.