A Trillion for one man, cuts for millions (opinion from West Virginia)

[Staph]

This opinion piece appeared in one of the largest newspapers in West Virginia. I don't know if this link will work for you, but . . . .

America has reached a point where the numbers no longer seem real. Millionaires become billionaires, and now corporate boards hand out trillion-dollar compensation packages as though this were a normal part of doing business. But what happened this month should stop the country in its tracks: A single corporate board approved giving one man, Elon Musk, compensation worth roughly $1 trillion over the next 10 years. One man, 10 years, $1,000,000,000,000.

And yet, at this same moment, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have passed deep cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, the very programs that feed our children, care for our elders, and keep working families alive. These cuts are not a rumor or a talking point; they have passed Congress with the help of West Virginia's entire Republican delegation and signed into law by President Trump. The cruel truth is this: The amount needed to restore these cuts is almost exactly the same as the trillion dollars one corporate board just gave to one man.
....

The tragedy is not only the cruelty of the cuts; it is the complete blindness to what these massive numbers truly mean. Real economic strength comes from families who can afford food, open hospitals, and safe neighborhoods, not from funneling unimaginable wealth into a single individual's portfolio. If America can give one man a trillion-dollar payday, then American can absolutely afford to keep its children fed, its hospitals open, and its families safely housed.

The question is not whether we have the money. The question is whose side are we on. It's time the trillionaires ante up a trillion or two. The distance between the super rich and the poor is a threat to democracy. We can't allow a few men to own the government as they are attempting now.

https://www.herald-dispatch.com/opinion/huey-perry-a-trillion-for-one-man-cuts-for-millions-opinion/article_5097b283-a1e6-497d-a9da-4b7cc8a2a524.html