One of America’s favorite pastimes is waxing poetic about how virtuous we are and how every other country should aspire to be like us. There is much to admire and celebrate about America, but we don’t like to acknowledge or discuss the two foundational vices in our country: greed and racism. They’re in our DNA. This piece is about greed.
Greed is such a powerful and pervasive force in our country that many of us admire the handful of people who are the best practitioners. This seduction takes place regardless of what your political ideology is. The billionaires we worship depend on what team they happen to be on. A perfect example is Elon Musk, once fawned over by many progressives, but now is the darling of trump followers. The paradox of this is that while hundreds of millions of Americans are working diligently to survive and meet their needs, the ultra-rich and rich are acting like little boys engaged in a pissing contest. Instead of competing for distance, they are competing for wealth accumulation.
In the United States, 1.3 million households own $49 trillion, or 31% of the nation’s total wealth. This is wild: 66.6 million households control 3.9 trillion, or 2% of the national wealth. That means 1.3 million households could replace what the 66.6 million own 15 times over. The picture is even worse when comparing the top 50% to the lower 50%. The top 50% hold 98% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% hold only 2% of the country’s wealth.
Some who read this may think I am somehow anti-success, but nothing could be further from the truth. I respect individuals who create technologies, products, or services that Americans benefit from. I don’t feel that way about people who co-opt those ideas and creations and then claim credit for them. I have no respect for anyone who exploits people to acquire outrageous wealth, yet refuses to contribute meaningfully to the society that has paved the way to their wealth.
A mythology is perpetuated about many of these billionaires and multimillionaires. Let’s debunk this mythology. Many wealthy individuals acquire wealth through nepotism, luck, greed, and toxic behavior. Elon Musk is living, breathing evidence of that. He checks off all four of those boxes on the checklist.
One of the most hypocritical things about these masters of the universe, robber barons, is that they lobby and propagandize against any government regulation over them, yet accept corporate welfare and also look to the same government to bail them out when their avariciousness takes them down. Never forget that the arsonist burning down our democracy and federal government right now (Musk) receives approximately $8,000,000 a day from the US government.
Why is it that a dependency on drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or food is called an addiction, a sickness, but the insatiable obsession with money or wealth is never viewed through that paradigm? People and corporations often resort to borrowing and stealing to acquire more wealth. They’ll even ignore the harm their actions will cause other Americans. Compliant politicians facilitate these money grabs for the benefit of the rich and usually to the detriment of the American public.
Our federal tax system is constructed for the benefit of the rich by those who want to become rich. For example, a Single US citizen who earns $19,997 pays a marginal rate of 12 percent of their income in federal taxes. Then, please tell me how the following is true in this great, fair nation that we live in.
In 2021, no mega-corporations listed below paid more than 10 percent of their pre-tax earnings in federal taxes. Worse, Uncle Sam gave four of the 19 companies below a refund for the tax year 2021.
| Corporation | Current U.S. federal income tax expense | Pre-tax US earnings minus state and local taxes owed | US federal effective tax rate |
| Amazon.com Inc. | $2.1 B | $35.1 B | 6.1% |
| Exxon Mobil Corp. | $262 M | $9.3 B | 2.8% |
| AT&T Inc. | −$1.2 B | $29.6 B | −4.1% |
| Microsoft Corp. | $3.3 B | $33.7 B | 9.7% |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | $2.9 B | $48.2 B | 5.9% |
| Verizon Communications | $1.9 B | $27.2 B | 6.9% |
| Ford Motor Co. | $102 M | $10 B | 1.0% |
| General Motors Co. | $20 M | $9.4 B | 0.2% |
| Chevron Corp. | $174 M | $9.5 B | 1.8% |
| Bank of America Corp. | $1.1 B | $30.6 B | 3.5% |
| United Parcel Service | $1.4 B | $14 B | 9.9% |
| FedEx Corp. | $199 M | $4.7 B | 4.2% |
| MetLife Inc. | $62 M | $4.8 B | 1.3% |
| Charter Communications Inc. | −$12 M | $6 B | −0.2% |
| Merck & Co. Inc. | $74 M | $1.9 B | 4.0% |
| American International Group Inc. | −$216 M | $9.8 B | −2.2% |
| Dow Inc. | −$46 M | $1.5 B | −3.1% |
| Nike Inc. | $328 M | $5.6 B | 5.9% |
| Coca-Cola Co. | $243 M | $3.4 B | 7.1% |
Investopedia.com
The destructive and senseless addiction to “more” continues to go unabated. No, that is an understatement. They have adopted greed as their raison d’être, as seen in every policy and action they implement. The current budget resolution passed by the Republican Congress is the vehicle by which this insatiable addiction will be served.
One of the most insulting political narratives is that the Republican Party is the “business party” and better managers of the economy. There is so much evidence available to debunk that claim. During my lifetime, every Republican President has created an economic crisis or downturn, only to be followed by a Democratic President to clean up their mess. The Republican Party and many of its followers clamor for the U.S. Government to be run like a business, but please point to one business entity that goes out of its way to reduce revenue or income drastically. According to The Tax Foundation (the world’s leading nonpartisan tax policy nonprofit), federal tax revenue will decrease by $4.5 trillion over the next decade if the Republican Congress’s bill is passed.
The same Congressional Budget Office that was hailed by Republicans when their analysis questioned the financial viability of President Biden’s budgets is now being attacked by those same Republicans when their study shows the following:
- Ten percent of households’ income will fall by 2 percent in 2027 and 4 percent in 2033
- Income for the top 10 percent will increase by 4 percent in 2027 and by 2 percent in 2033
A Yale Budget Lab analysis found that the bottom 20 percent of households (those making less than $14,000) would see their annual incomes fall by an average of $800 in 2027. The top 20 percent (those making over $128,000) would see their income grow by an average of $9,700. Predictably, the biggest beneficiaries will be the top 1 percent who would gain $63,000 in 2027.
Whenever Republicans garner control of our government, their actions belie the argument that power is at the root of attaining political dominance. I believe that the current lineup of Republican officeholders shows quite clearly that they hold their offices to serve the wealthiest and most narcissistic individuals in the country, even if that means snatching healthcare and food from Americans and those challenged by famine and disease.
Exhibit A: the fact that Republican Senators and Congress members are willing to relinquish the foundational power vested in them by the Constitution on behalf of people who are oblivious to the concept of income inequality and its harm to billions of people.
Much of their greed is fueled by the competition to accumulate wealth and improve their status in an “economic pissing contest,” but now we have a President who exacerbates this. For decades, he has been shut out of that competition but is hell-bent on correcting it through extortion, corruption, and fraud without concern for collateral damage-
References
1. Budget Reconciliation: Tracking the 2025 Trump Tax Cuts https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/afederal/trump-tax-cuts-2025-budget-reconciliation
2. H.R. 1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/text
3. By the Numbers: House Republican Tax Agenda Favors the Wealthy and Leaves Millions of Working Families Behind
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
4. House Republican tax bill favors the rich – how much they stand to gain, and why CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/23house-republican-big-beautiful-tax-bill
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