Just so we’re clear:
EVERYTHING ever done by the GOP and this Administration is nothing but a SCAM.
This is nothing but a SMASH AND GRAB Administration.
Everything they do is garbage.
There is absolutely, positively nothing that they do that benefits those with the least in this society.
So, as long as you go in understanding that, reading this article shouldn’t shock you. The thing about this group is that they don’t even pretend. The old GOP would have a few actual REAL projects that would be under the umbrella of what they pretend that the program is supposed to be about. They don’t even go through the pretense before getting to the SMASH AND GRAB.
From the ; NYTimes:
THE BONANZA
Symbol of ’80s Greed Stands to Profit From Trump Tax Break for Poor Areas
By Eric Lipton and Jesse Drucker
• Oct. 26, 2019
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RENO, Nev. — In the 1980s, Michael Milken embodied Wall Street greed. A swashbuckling financier, he was charged with playing a central role in a vast insider-trading scheme and was sent to prison for violating federal securities and tax laws. He was an inspiration for the Gordon Gekko character in the film “Wall Street.”
Mr. Milken has spent the intervening decades trying to rehabilitate his reputation through an influential nonprofit think tank, the Milken Institute, devoted to initiatives “that advance prosperity.”
These days, the Milken Institute is a leading proponent of a new federal tax break that was intended to coax wealthy investors to plow money into distressed communities known as “opportunity zones.” The institute’s leaders have helped push senior officials in the Trump administration to make the tax incentive more generous, even though it is under fire for being slanted toward the wealthy.
Mr. Milken, it turns out, is in a position to personally gain from some of the changes that his institute has urged the Trump administration to enact. In one case, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, directly intervened in a way that benefited Mr. Milken, his longtime friend.
It is a vivid illustration of the power that Mr. Milken, who was barred from the securities industry and fined $600 million as part of his 1990 felony conviction, has amassed in President Trump’s Washington. In addition to the favorable tax-policy changes, some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers — including Mr. Mnuchin, Jared Kushner and Rudolph W. Giuliani — have lobbied the president to pardon Mr. Milken for his crimes, or supported that effort, according to people familiar with the effort.
While the Milken Institute’s advocacy of opportunity zones is public, Mr. Milken’s financial stake in the outcome is not.………………………………………………..
One of those developments, inside an industrial park, is a nearly 700-acre site in which Mr. Milken is a major investor. Last year, after pressure from Mr. Milken’s business partner and other landowners, the Treasury Department ignored its own guidelines on how to select opportunity zones and made the area eligible for the tax break, according to people involved in the discussions and records reviewed by The Times.
The unusual decision was made at the personal instruction of Mr. Mnuchin, according to internal Treasury Department emails. It came shortly after he had spent time with Mr. Milken at an event his institute hosted.
But, of course. Thieves around other thieves, finding their way to the public trough, all the while would be the first ones decrying ‘ the takers’, aka, the least of us in society. IF ONLY, ‘ the takers’ knew how to scam and defraud like this bunch of the 1%.
Like I said…
There is nothing beneficial for the least of these from this Administration. Dubya would at least pretend, and put in a plausible figleaf of deniability through’ compassionate conservatism’. This bunch is nothing but SMASH AND GRAB. Whenever you hear anything about any program, follow the money to see who is trying to do what SCAM. The answer is ALWAYS there.
Nothing but a bunch of scamming thieves.
