Oligarchy? Plutocracy? Co-president Musk? Questions surround U.S. power structure
Re: “Biden signs budget bill,” Dec. 22 news story
I have been wondering what happened to the fiscal responsibility of the Republican Party. Trump wanted to suspend the debt limit. Why would he want no limits on the national debt? Could it be that he would want to help the billionaire class and big businesses to cut taxes? The tax cuts then did not substantially help the majority of us. His last tax cuts increased the nation’s debt substantially.
The talk is that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for the tax cuts.
Since when has Elon Musk been elected? Could it be that he would like to continue getting federal subsidies on his businesses and that he does not want the United States to limit how much money can be invested in China? He also threatened to spend money to have candidates against anyone in Congress who opposes him. Trump does the same thing, but he has been elected.
Have we become an oligarchy?
Neil Fleischauer, Westminster
It’s not even January yet, and it’s official: The U.S. is now an oligarchy, not a democracy — a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique, government by the few.
Elon Musk says yes or no, then President-elect Trump either agrees or Musk stops the cash flow. All Republicans in Congress bow down to the almighty, or they lose their jobs next election.
This is what the American people voted for!
Jerry Witt, Commerce City
If co-president Elon Musk decides that a bipartisan piece of legislation does not meet with his personal approval, he uses X (which he owns) to mobilize the MAGA mob against it.
Legislators of the MAGA party have been put on notice that their only job is to vote as they are told. A failure to follow the guidance of Mr. Musk will result in their replacement by a person who will. Musk has made it very clear that he has the money to “primary” anyone who opposes his will.
Having “invested” over $250 million to install Donald Trump in the White House, Musk probably believes that he is only receiving his proper due. The separation of powers with checks and balances is not a concept that the richest man in the world feels that he is bound by. Mr. Trump will make a very nice figurehead, but it is obvious that the plutocracy, in the form of Elon Musk, now rules America.
Guy Wroble, Denver
With the inauguration still weeks away, President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk have started running aspects of the government. They and others in the U.S. House are either ignorant or ignoring the fact that it takes a majority of votes to get anything done.
With the House and Senate close to, but not quite at 50-50, the Republicans are going to have to work with Democrats, who represent the other half of the country, to get things done.
What Trump and Musk, along with their allies in the House are doing, as they will find out, is going down the Pottery Barn path; something along the lines of you break it, you own it. It seems appropriate to say that.
John W. Thomas, Fort Collins
Cabinet picks: blind loyalty and billionaires
There was a lot of talk before the election that quite a bit of what President-elect Donald Trump was saying was just talk, and we should not take it seriously.
Now that he is elected and before he is even sworn into office, we are unfortunately finding out we should have taken everything he said very seriously.
His cabinet picks are not even remotely qualified for the positions they could conceivably be confirmed for when the confirmation hearings begin.
Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel are just a few. They are only being nominated because of their blind loyalty to Trump.
His cabinet has more billionaires than any cabinet in history and we are fast becoming a country run by oligarchs. For the 50% of the country that voted for him this will become very clear as he takes office. The tax cuts he is so intent on passing will once again only benefit the 1% and large corporations and, like so many Republican tax cuts of the past, will not pay for themselves but only increase the deficit, which is why he wanted Congress to suspend the debt ceiling before he took office for the first two years of his administration.
I only hope you report these things as they happen because the press is not the enemy of the people. It is one of the only things that prevent our country from becoming a dictatorship.
David Shaw, Highlands Ranch
FAA not responsible for development around DIA
Re: “FAA won’t fund widening of Peña,” Dec. 22 news story
The FAA shouldn’t have to pay for widening Peña Boulevard. The parties responsible for the increase in traffic are the city officials who approved it and the real estate developers who built thousands of new housing units near the airport without considering the need for increased infrastructure.
Now the rest of us who work at the airport or fly frequently have to compete with all the drivers who live and work next to DIA.
I wonder how long before all those folks start complaining about airport noise and they decide to move the airport even further east.
Chris Korpela, Centennial
Peña Boulevard was designed and built to get people to and from DIA. Over the years, as airport travel increased, so did traffic congestion on Peña Boulevard. In addition, vehicles using Peña as a local connector between exits increased. An easy, economical and efficient means of reducing congestion on Peña Boulevard would be to close local exits for northbound traffic and close local entrances for southbound traffic. This would force local traffic back onto local collector streets. Peña Boulevard congestion would be reduced, and it would return to being the “Road to DIA.”
David George-Nichols, Sedalia
Gender documentation should be a national ruling
Re: “Judge blocks rule that prevented changing gender on documents,” Dec. 19 news story
I read your recent article on Montana’s State judge blocking a rule preventing document gender changes with trepidation for two basic reasons.
First of all, in my mind, there is something inherently wrong with changing any original birth certificate with regard to gender. Whether you believe in God, merely the laws of nature, or have no thoughts as to how we began life, we all were born with a specific gender.
I am not questioning the choices people make regarding their futures and how they want to continue their life’s journey; however, in my opinion, there should be a formal, untampered record as to how they started out. I do not personally feel we can just chalk our beginnings up to some “mistake” and call it a day just because we want to live otherwise.
Secondly, I shudder at the thought of varied states making their own decision on this matter. There are some issues that should be universal and apply to all of us who live in the United States.
What a nightmare we cause ourselves by potentially allowing people in Montana to change their gender on birth certificates/driver’s licenses etc. while people in another state cannot do the same. We have taken states’ rights to a whole new level. We supposedly consider the Constitution to apply to all states in the union; however, we are steadily marching towards a goal that encourages every individual state to function as its own country. It’s time to separate state issues (ones that are particular to that given territory) and Republic issues that universally apply to all states. To me, this gender issue is one of the latter.
Diane Silver, Broomfield
Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.
