The Financial Hardships of Trump's Friends
ROBERT REICH MAY 8, 2018
Trumponomics is a thin veneer of an excuse for giving America’s rich—already richer than ever—whatever they want, while sticking it to everyone else
The Environmental Protection Agency recently granted to an oil refinery owned by Carl Icahn a so-called “financial hardship” waiver. The exemption allows the refinery to avoid clean air laws, potentially saving Icahn millions of dollars.
Icahn is not exactly a hardship case. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, his net worth is $21.8 billion. Over the last four decades as a corporate raider, Icahn has pushed CEOs to cut payrolls, abandon their communities, and outsource jobs abroad in order to generate more money for him and other investors.
In 1985, after winning control of the now-defunct Trans World Airlines, Icahn stripped its assets, pocketed nearly $500 million in profits, and left the airline more than $500 million in debt. Former TWA chair C.E. Meyer Jr. called Icahn “one of the greediest men on earth.”
No single person has done more to harm America’s working class than Carl Icahn. Not surprisingly, Icahn was a Trump backer from the start, and has benefited immensely from Trump’s presidency.
http://prospect.org/article/financial-hardships-trump%E2%80%99s-friends
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