Population
the Body Politic
If a person charged with government responsibilities is irresponsible; if focused entirely on image and posture on social and traditional media, on power, position and pandering to whatever (or whoever) applauds his antics or funds his position…
Evidence
Multi-Millionaire Members of US House and Senate (2024 update)
|
Rick Scott (Florida):
$327.35M
Vern Buchanan (Florida):
$249.36M
Nancy Pelosi
(California):
$247.79M
Mitt Romney (Utah)
$245.34M
Darrell Issa
(California):
$215.29M
|
Mark Warner (Virginia):
$195.20M
Daniel Goldman (New
York):
$177.81M
Pete Ricketts
(Nebraska):
$162.33M
Suzan Delbene Washington):
$125.61M
Don Beyer (Virginia):
$113.59M
|
Jay Obernolte (California):
$97.89M
|
Mark E. Green
Tennessee):
$80.66M
|
|
David Trone
(Maryland):
$77.41M
Kevin Hern
(Oklahoma):
$76.91M
Roger Williams
(Texas):
$75.30M
Sara Jacobs(California):
$73.03M
|
Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma): $63.81M
John Rose (Tennessee):
$61.73M
Ralph Norman (South Carolina):
$60.10M
|
John Hoeven (North Carolina):
$59.61M
Scott Peters (California):
$55.93M
Bill Hagerty (Tennessee):
$55.73M
James E. Risch (Idaho):
$54.07M
Ron Johnson (Wisconsin):
$54.00M
Jamaal Bowman (New York):
$50.01M
|
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky):
$48.16M
Kathy Manning (North Carolina):
$47.97M
Dean Phillips (Minnesota):
$45.99M
Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey):
$45.96M
James Baird (Indiana):
$45.93M
|
Source: Spokesman Review Spokane, Washington, Further Review “Congressional Millionaires” “The Top 30” (chart) “the 30 richest people on Capitol Hill … as ranked by financial data aggregator Quiver Quantitative” by Charles Apple, October 2, 2024, https://www.spokesman.com/further-review/congressional-millionaires/
Evidence
Multi-millionaire US Presidents (42nd thru– 46th-47th) before and after term in office (figures vary depending on source)
|
William Jefferson (var. Blythe III)
Clinton [b. Hope, Arkansas] 42nd
US President
BEFORE:
$1.3M
AFTER (estimates vary):
$120–241M
|
George Walker Bush [b. New Haven, Connecticut]
43rd US President
BEFORE:
$20M
AFTER:
$40M
|
Barack Hussein Obama II (once
known in Indonesia as “Barry Soetoro”) [b. Honolulu, Hawaii] 44th US
President
BEFORE:
$1.3M
AFTER:
$70M
|
|
Donald John Trump [b. New York,
New York] 45th US President
BEFORE:
$2.3B
AFTER:
$3.7B
|
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. [b. Scranton, Pennsylvania] 46th US President
BEFORE:
$8–9M
AFTER:
$10M
|
Donald John Trump [b. New York, New York] 47th US President
BEFORE:
$3.7B
LATER:
6.5B
|
Source: Smyth, Jenny October 26, 2025, “US Presidents Before and After Net Worth” (Updated 2025). 2025 Cine Net Worth
https://www.cinenetworth.com/us-presidents-before-and-after-net-worth/ [Ranges
& Variability: Data on Modern presidents such as Clinton and Trump “have
wide-ranging estimates — reflecting divergent reporting across sources”] Cine
Net Worth https://www.cinenetworth.com/about-us/
If a person charged with government responsibilities is irresponsible; if focused entirely on image and posture on social and traditional media, on power, position and pandering to whatever (or whoever) applauds his antics or funds his position…
Evidence
Waste, Fraud, Abuse
|
US Federal Budget Fiscal years
2001-2022
|
|
$8 TRILLION
|
US Wars (violent aggression against foreign countries) are “funded largely through debt” thus “obscuring the true costs of war by pushing financial obligations to future generations.” Past wars were funded “through increased taxes or the sale of war bonds.” Increased public debt drives up “interest rates economy-wide, which can hamper business investments and make life more expensive for individuals and families.”
|
Since early October 2023 $31.35 –
$33.77 BILLION
|
|
Fiscal years 2025-2029 (House
Resolution 1)
|
|
$156 BILLION for Pentagon and
military related programs
|
Fiscal year 2026 Pentagon and military-related spending
|
13 percent increase over Fiscal
year 2025
|
|
Pushes ‘national defense’ spending
beyond $1 TRILLION mark
|
Years 2020 through 2024
|
$771 BILLION in Pentagon contracts
went to just five firms:
|
- Lockheed Martin ($313 billion)
- RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion)
- Boeing ($115 billion)
- General Dynamics ($116 billion)
- Northrop Grumman ($81 billion)
Contrary Washington inmates and partners' round-the-clock propaganda about external threats to Americans (notice, they never mention the
internal threats), the United States of America (via successive congresses and administrations) spends more than double the amount the People’s Republic of China spends on military spending, “even after accounting for differences in labor costs and purchasing power.” And though “Western strategists have a long tradition of over-inflating Russia as a military threat …, the Russian defense budget amounts to less than one-tenth of the US defense budget.”
Instructive COMPARISONS
- $8 Trillion Military Spending
- $356 billion total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget (excluding military aid)
- 5 jobs per $1 million U.S. military spending (incl direct jobs and jobs in private industry supply chain)
- 13 jobs created for every $1 million US Education spending (nearly 3 times as much employment) Source: Cost of War Project Brown University (June 2025 page update) https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/economic/us-federal-budget
If a person charged with government responsibilities is irresponsible; if focused entirely on image and posture on social and traditional media, on power, position and pandering to whatever (or whoever) applauds his antics or funds his position…
Frivolity
|
Trump Administration Proposed
Change of Cabinet Level Department of Defense to War Department
|
|
$2 Billion (2025 estimate)
|
Bahney, Jennifer Bowers September 5, 2025, “Trump’s Plan to
Rename DOD to Department of War ‘Would Likely Cost Billions’: Report” Mediaite,
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trumps-plan-to-rename-dod-to-department-of-war-would-likely-cost-billions-report/h-isnt-even-official-will-cost-2-billion/
Walker, Chris November 14, 2025, “Department of War” Name
Change, Which Isn’t Even Official, Will Cost $2 Billion” “The move prioritizes ‘political
theater over responsible governance,’ a group of Democrats said in a statement”
Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/department-of-war-name-change-whic
|
Trump Administration Proposed
Construction White House Golden Ballroom
|
|
$200–$300 million (2025 estimate)
|
Factually November 14, 2025 “Who is paying for the new ballroom at the White House?”
Checked on: “The White House’s new ballroom project—announced as privately financed and estimated at roughly $200–$300 million—has been funded by President Trump himself plus a long list of corporate and wealthy individual donors, including major tech, defense and finance firms; the White House released a donor list after initially saying fundraising would be private Reporting shows specific corporate names (Amazon, Apple, Google/Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Lockheed, Palantir and others) and individual donors (e.g., Stephen Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson, the Winklevosses).” “Exact dollar amounts per donor are often not disclosed and some contributions were reported as coming via settlements or intermediary entities.” https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/who-is-paying-for-white-house-ballroom-57b9be
Ultimate Evidence
Neglect of public Good
Evidence of Abandonment by Power
Public officials’ Priorities, Policies, and Practices:
Poverty in the United States of America
Compared with other Countries Around the World, the United States of America “has the highest poverty rate among the world’s 26 most developed countries.” [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data]
On a scale economists categorize as “‘relative child poverty,’” the United States of America “ranks second behind the United Mexican States (Mexico)” [United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) data]. Relative child poverty refers to a household in which “the income is less than half of the national median.”
The United States of America’s most poverty-stricken regions are those where US Federal officials’ policies offshored or otherwise destroyed the main source of domestic commerce and exchange, livelihood, income—agriculture, farming, raising livestock. States of the United States of America with the highest poverty rates (based on a three-year average, 2020-2022), highest percentage of population living below poverty line (states listed alphabetically) are:
|
Alabama 14.8 percent
|
Arkansas 15.9 percent
|
Kentucky 15.8 percent
|
Louisiana 16.9 percent
|
Mississippi 17.8 percent
|
|
New Mexico 18.2 percent
|
North Carolina and South Carolina
tied each ast13.3 percent
|
Oklahoma 15.8 percent
|
Texas 13.7 percent
|
West Virginia 15.6 percent
|
Fay, Bill December 21, 2023 (update) “Poverty in the United States.” Debt.org. https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-states/
https://www.debt.org/ Home of the Nation’s Capital the Poverty Rates (2023 data) are these:
- Throughout the District of Columbia 14.0 percent
· Among non-high school graduates: 34.3 percent
· Among Disabled Residents: 30.2 percent
· Among Residents with income below poverty line: 14.0 percent
· Among High school graduates: 9.8 percent
Source: City-Data.com https://www.city-data.com/poverty/poverty-Washington-District-of-Columbia.html
Drug Problem
Not unrelated to poverty are problems of drug addiction and drug trafficking interwoven with unemployment and unemployability, essential schooling, marketable skills and training.
US States (including District of Columbia) with greatest (legal and illegal) Drug Addiction Problem (Ten States beginning with highest: #1- #10)
|
#1
New Mexico
|
#2
West Virginia
|
#3
Nevada
|
#4
Alaska
|
#5: Washington, DC
|
|
#6
Oklahoma
|
#7
Missouri
|
#8
Colorado
|
#9
Louisiana
|
#10
Arkansas
|
Source Kesslen, Ben May 13, 2025 “The 10 states with the biggest drug problems in America
Residents in some states are particularly struggling with substance use disorders” Quartz https://qz.com/us-states-by-drug-addiction-1851779223#the-10-states-with-the-biggest-drug-problems-in-america
About Quartz: https://qz.com/about
Questions of Causation and Interwoven factors and conditions
Though there are few easily available studies correlating substantive
work with drug problems (addiction and trafficking or dealing), there have been
some studies that have published findings showing a decisive link between
unemployment or unemployability and drug trafficking or drug dealing. In a 2019
study, authors Kayode Emmanuel Adeniyi, Rosemary Eneji, and John Okpa made the following
conclusion:
“There was a highly significant direct relationship between
lack of employability skills and drug trafficking, which suggests that “in the
face of an increasing unemployment rate, job seekers who lack employability
skills easily go into trafficking in illicit drugs for survival.” Moreover,
“There was a significant association between lack of entrepreneurial skills and
drug trafficking, suggesting that job seekers who lack entrepreneurial skills
are more prone to trade in illicit drugs as a means of sustaining themselves
from the pains of hardship. They are often recruited as agents, couriers, traffickers
and peddlers by drug barons.”
Adeniyi, Emmanuel Kayode and Rosemary I. Eneji, John Thompson Okpa 2019 “Unemployment and Drug Trafficking Among Suspects in Custody of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Cross River State Command, Nigeria” National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria Doi:10.19044/esj.2019.v15n19p191 URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esj.2019.v15n19p191
https://files.core.ac.uk/download/pdf/236412431.pdf
Other studies by sources outside the United States of America have published similar findings.
Though the relationship between poverty and crime (including drug abuse and trafficking) is complex, studies have shown that poverty and unemployment are major contributing factors to drug trafficking. In some cases, individuals turn to drug trafficking as a means of survival when they are unable to find legitimate employment. It has been estimated that 10 to 15 percent “of all drug trafficking is motivated by poverty and unemployment.”
Human problems tend to feed on themselves and conditions become cyclical. “Without the knowledge and skills required for well-compensated work in the modern workplace, each succeeding generation of undereducated adults merely replaces the one before it without achieving any upward mobility or escape from poverty.” People having more advanced education have a greater chance of “achieving a secure economic future.” People who are “impoverished … tend to have less education, more health problems, less access to nutritionally adequate food;” and they “are more likely to live in high-crime areas.”
Contributing to the cycle of impoverishment and drug problems (abuse and trafficking) are demand, politics, gang activity, and addiction. The want for the last often results in trafficking. The cycle of addiction and trafficking is a significant issue: “addiction to drugs can lead individuals to traffic drugs to support their habits.”
Drug trafficking is also driven by high demand. Reports have shown that in the United States of America there is “a strong market for traffickers” with an estimated “16 million people” having “used cocaine in their lifetime.” “High demand for illicit drugs drives trafficking networks.” Another factor driving drug trafficking is the quality or caliber of governance. Corrupt officials—while often making a show of conducting drug raids or launching wars on drugs—tend to exacerbate the issue by habitually “allowing traffickers to bypass legal constraints and evade law enforcement.”
In the complex mix of trafficking and social conditions and corrupt governance is gang activity, which may also be a function of inadequate support and work or substantive employment.
As gangs, reportedly, use drug trafficking as a primary source of income, they also commit “violence and intimidation” (not unlike the USA’s entrenched mob element, its hegemonic culture and character of entitlement) to gain, maintain and control territories; and obtain, sustain and increase profits. As estimated “5 to 10 percent of drug trafficking” has been traced to “gang-related activity.” Particularly in the United States of America, drug trafficking “contributes to violent crimes.” Historical data, extending to the late 1990s, have shown an estimated 5 percent of murders in the United States are related to the drug trade.
Source JOUAV Blog July 25, 2024, “Drug Trafficking: Definition, Types, and Causes”
Category: blog JOUAV 3A-11F, Jingrong Innovation Hub, No.200, 5th TianFu St., Hi-tech District, Chengdu City, China 610041 Stock Code: [ 688070.SH, https://www.jouav.com/blog/drug-trafficking.html
https://www.jouav.com/company
If a person charged with government responsibilities is irresponsible; if focused entirely on image and posture on social
and traditional media, on power, position and pandering to whatever (or
whoever) applauds his antics or funds his position—this person has no space or time to
devote to the public good. Such an individual is totally ignorant of and divorced
from public need and public good; what is vital to the strength of a nation. The priorities and actions of such a person amount
to betrayal—betrayal dangerously lacking even in self-reflection.
ithout leadership imbued with high moral character and intellectual caliber, we are lost.
Without focused, reflective, serious and sustained due diligence in governmental
leadership (and without a collective population holding them to task), whole societies, domestic and international, will continue to be subjected to needless harm and neglect.
Absent the aforementioned leadership qualities, a nation is bereft of essential
good governance— governance in service to the public good. A nation is weakened (threatened from within) by weakness at the helm. Moral and intellectual weakness at the helm (in
one after another US congress and administration) has inflicted perhaps irreparable
harm on the nation’s people and the prospect of deepening and reinforcing a non-factional, indivisible Union, and shared
culture.
###
Prolific Southern-Born American Writer Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett focuses on People, Press, Politics USA; Domestic and Foreign Affairs (no copyright claimed in direct quotes and individual image)
https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett
https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/
Latest book: Are There No Champions? Yes and No
https://www.xlibris.com
Email: Nolandanisland@hotmail.com or Authorswork@gmail.com
QualificationsStandards Enforcement Prerequisites for Public Office 
