From the New York Times:
Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter. … A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mr. Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Mr. Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
The article doesn’t mention that Grandpa Mellon was perhaps the greatest donor to the American people in the history of the nation. He gave his art collection and an endowment to establish the National Gallery of Art. He did this despite being the subject of what ChatGPT says what was a politically motivated tax fraud lawsuit by President FDR:
The government under FDR’s Treasury and Justice Department pursued a civil case (and attempted criminal charges) against Mellon for alleged under-reporting of income in 1931, improper loss transactions (“wash sales”) of stock, and questionable charitable deduction claims (e.g., an art collection transferred to a trust) that might reduce his tax liability. The case dragged on for years: a grand jury outside Pittsburgh declined to indict Mellon for fraud in 1934. In 1937, after Mellon’s death, the Board of Tax Appeals concluded there was “no doubt” the record did not sustain a fraud charge and found his trust and transfers to the art-trust valid. The government still obtained some additional taxes owing, but far less than originally sought.
His children Paul Mellon and Alisa Mellon Bruce were also major donors to the museum. Collectively they must have given money and artworks that are worth tens of $billions today. (Contrast to today’s billionaires who skip out on paying capital gains tax and send money straight to Africa.)
How about if we start a thank-you card-writing campaign? The $130 million donated is $130 million in taxes we won’t have to pay! (Yes, I recognize that all marginal federal spending can be considered additions to the debt rather than additions to collections from working Americans, but eventually taxpayers have to pay the debt unless it is inflated away to insignificance in our inflation-free Scientifically-managed economy.)
Its a nice gesture (?), but $130M is only 1% of the $13B monthly military payroll.
Anon: That’s a great point. $130 million would buy a nice house on Palm Beach, but how can it stretch to pay 1.3 million active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, et al.? That would be just $100 per person in the military.