*** You can’t make this stuff up!!! – Day After Day – same headlines: Trump’s Craven Corruption and the increasing SUFFERING of ordinary [non- top 1%] people – like YOU. Review these reports:

– “Wealthy getting more tax breaks”. [ Jesse Drucker; New York Times; 11/7/25 ]
– “CEO’s Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind”. [ Sarah Anderson; The Progressive Populist; Oct., 2025]
– “At McDonald’s, low-income customers aren’t likin” it” { Jaclyn Peiser; Washington Post Weekly; 11/9/25 ]
– “The Undeclared Class War”. [ Wayne O’Leary; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025 ]
– “Our ‘inflation diet’ Is Starving Junk Food Sales”. [ Brooks Johnson; Minnesota Star Tribune; 10/27/25 ]

*** “The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President ]

I. “Wealthy getting more tax breaks”
1] “With little public scrutiny, the Trump administration is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to some of the country’s most profitable companies and wealthiest investors.” [NOTE: WHY??????}
2]. “The primary target: The administration is rapidly gutting a 2022 law intended to ensure that a sliver of the country’s most profitable corporations pay at least some federal income tax.” [NOTE: WHY?????]

3]. “These breaks come in addition to the roughly $4 trillion package of tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law in July. The legislation passed entirely by Republicans, heavily benefits businesses and the ultrawealthy. It is projected to add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit ands came with steep cuts to health care for the elderly and food stamps for the poorest Americans.” [NOTE: read this again – this is the very definition of corruption and cruelty]

4] “The alternative minimum tax isn’t the administration’s only effort to roll back taxes on large businesses and wealthy individuals. Last month, the Treasury granted a new tax relief to foreign investors in U.S. real estate. In August, they withdrew regulations to prevent multinationals from avoiding taxes by claiming duplicate losses in multiple countries at once. And, as The New York Times previously reported, the Treasury and IRS have rolled back a crackdown on an aggressive tax shelter used by big companies…” [READ THUIS AGAIN – corruption anyone?]

***. “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
[ John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President ]

5]. “The Treasury’s actions are probably contributing hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit, tax experts said. That is on top of what the agency did during the first Trump administration..”

6] “Big companies effectively keep two sets of books – one for investors and another for the IRS. The profits they report to the IRS permit various deductions that can bring a firm’s tax rate far below the 21% corporate tax rate.”

7] “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law in July provided well over $1 trillion in relief for big companies when they calculate their income tax bills….. As a result, the regular tax bills of many businesses drop so sharply – below 15% – that that they could be newly subject to the alternative minimum tax.” [NOTE: faer not!!!!! – “lobbying’ took care of that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

*** “Do you decree righteousness, you rulers? Do you judge the people fairly? No, in your hearts you devise wickedness; your hands deal out violence on the land.” [ Psalm 47: 8 ]

II. “CEO’s Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind”
1] “CEO’s of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages – a group I call the ‘Low-Wage 100″ – have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years. As a group, these CEO’s now earn 632 times more than their median employees, I found in a new report for the Institute for Policy Studies. Their pay has risen nearly 35 percent since 2019 in absolute terms, While their median worker pay hasn’t even kept up with the U.S. inflation rate.” [ Greed? ]

2]. “It’s not for lack of cash. Between 2019 and 2024, these firms spent a combined $644 billion on stock buybacks. This once-illegal financial maneuver artificially inflates the value of a company’s stock – and with it, CEO pay. Even the most inept executives can rake in vast fortunes through this scam. Every dollar spent on buybacks represents a dollar not spent on workers. [. GREED, anyone????? ]

3] “The tradeoffs can be downright staggering. At Lowe’s..every one of their 273,000 employees could’ve gotten an annual $28,456 bonus over the past six years with the money the retailer blew on stock buybacks. Lowe’s median worker pay was just $30,606 last year. If McDonald’s had spent their buyback outlays on worker bonuses during this period, they could’ve given all their employees an extra $18,338 per year – more than the company’s median wage.”

*** “To lead the people, walk behind them.” [ Lao Tau ]

4]. “It’s bad for business too – most of these companies are spending more on buybacks than on vital investments like training employees or upgrading technology, equipment, and properties. And extensive research shows that extreme pay disparities undermine employee morale and boost turnover rates.”

5] “How could policymakers incentivize more equitable pay practices? They could increase taxes on corporations with huge CEO-worker pay gaps. Congress could also increase the 1% excise tax on stock buybacks that went into effect in 2023.”

*** “He that hastes to be rich has an evil eye, and considers not that poverty shall fall upon him.” [Proverbs. 28: 22]

III. “At McDonald’s, low-income customers aren’t lovin’ it”

1] “Lower-income customers aren’t finding much value in the menu at McDonald’s these days. Traffic dropped ‘nearly double digits” industry-wide among this demographic. Meanwhile, traffic among higher-income customers continued to grow across the fast-food sector.”

2] “McDonald’s is the latest example of a growing bifurcation among U.S. consumers. The wealthiest Americans are fueling consumer spending, while the working class – bogged down by waning wage growth, grocery inflation and the rising costs of living – are forgoing dining out….Chipotle chief executive Scott Boatwright told investors last week that “the gap has widened’ among its customers, with those in households earning less than $100,000…eating at the fast-food restaurant less frequently.” [ read this again, & again ]

***. “In imitation of our Master, we Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it.” [ pope Francis ]

3] “Walmart, Dollar General and Dollar Tree have also noted the growing pressure on their core low-income customers as they continue to pullback on spending in discretionary categories..”

4] “From 2019 to 2024, the average cost of a menu item rose 40 percent, according to a company fact sheet.”

***. “Take heed, and beware of greed, for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

[Luke 12: 15]

IV. “The Undeclared Class War”

1] “A number of commentators have remarked recently on the symbolic expression of Trumpian corruption and ostentation… If you can’t afford to belong, don’t feel bad. most Americans can’t afford to ante up for much of anything in the nation’s capital these days. The town belongs to the billionaire class and their retainers – or political bosses.. Oligarchy is in the saddle, and the oligarchs know it.”

2] “It’s a strange combination: Fascistic apparatchiks resembling a mafioso peddling conspiratorial extremism, fear and vengefulness are paired with nouveau riche entrepreneurial billionaires willing to happily accommodate the extremist politicos to ensure the success of their personal, wealth-generating vision of a starwars economic future built on monetized technology. Put it all under the command of a godfather figure who is at once chief executive and chief oligarch. as well as chief enforcer, and you have what some have called a gangster government.” [re-read this!!!]

3] “The descent can be said to have begun in the 1980s, when the excesses hailed as freedom by Trump sycophant Bezos were delivered in large helpings to the upper orders under the smiling visage of Ronald Reagan. It was classic American laissez-faire capitalism in application; that is, deregulate and privatize, eliminate high-end taxation, and allow the market’s “invisible hand” to work its will free of government oversight. Assume the rewards will trickle down to the benefit of all…they never do; the signature characteristic of the system in its mature phase is overwhelming economic concentration and starkclass disparities.”

*** “There is class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” [Billionaire Warren Buffett, 2005]

4] “The group Americans for Tax Fairness reports that by the end of 2023, American billionaires were collectively worth a record $5.2 trillion – up an astounding $2.3 trillion, or 78%, since the passage of the Trump-GOP tax cut of 2017; that’s an annual increase of 13%, producing unheard of riches even by the standards of U.S. billionaires…..”

5] “a reasonable question is how such egregious capital concentration – it currently stands at 17% of American GDP – has been allowed to develop. The most obvious explanation is federal tax policy.” YES – it is that simple – this is CORRUPTION in action. There is NO justification that considers. ‘..to promote the general Welfare..” that can imagine tax cuts like these, let alone actually enact them.]

6] “Since the 1980s, virtually all federal taxes impacting billionaires – personal income, corporate income, long-term capital gains, shareholder dividend, and inheritance – have been cut roughly in half, radically reducing the money owed..” [. this isn’t rocket science – it’s blatant CORRUPTION ]

***. ‘You have despised the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you, and drag you before the judgment seats?” [ James 2: 6 ]

V. “Our ‘inflation diet” Is Starving Junk Food Sales”
1] “Rising food prices remain the top concern among consumers globally, according to a recent NielsenIQ study. Food inflation ranked higher than war, job security, housing costs and climate change. Almost all food is noticeably more expensive now compared with five years ago.”

2]. “But many food companies, like Hormel and Oreo-maker Mondelez, are still raising prices to preserve their profit margins… Then there is ‘shrinkflation,’ where prices ara stable, but packages contain less food.”

3] “Without sales growth comes a hunt for productivity. Nestle, the world’s largest food company, recently announced it’s cutting 16,000 jobs, about 6% of its workforce, and will bring in more automation in office jobs and at factories to become ‘an agile company.” The Swiss giant’s stock price rose 10% on the news.” [ SO, stay tuned….]

***. “Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” [ Henry Clay, U.S. Senator, 1829 ]

*** “The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.” [. Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, 3rd U.S. President ]