Sounded like a mixed crowd response when the beefy, slightly stooped, 78-year old President Donald Trump plodded onto the field before Super Bowl LIX. The reaction was a surprise, wasn’t it? You’d think with all those high-rollers in attendance, they’d be throwing roses at this president as they await his next big tax break for those who need it the least.
The average ticket price for the Philadelphia Eagles’ 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs was reportedly $5,658. Naturally, some tickets were higher than others. There was one report of a scalper getting $23,000. Another report had some moron spending $69,000.
Well, what the hell is $69,000 to some billionaire who paid less in taxes than a schoolteacher last year?
Who are the lucky ones who can afford even the cheapest Super Bowl tickets? The folks who got the biggest tax breaks the last time Trump was president and voted for him this time around in expectation he’d take care of them again.
Certainly, that includes nobody who’s desperate for any kind of government assistance, or as the Evergreen Action organization described it last week, “funds that help people keep the lights on, keep our drinking water clean, and communities recovering from gut-wrenching floods and wildfires,” and thousands of government workers worrying they’re going to lose their jobs as Trump and co-president Elon Musk wage war on the federal bureaucracy.
Oh, yeah, and the USAID folks wondering if Trump will actually scratch $40 billion in foreign assistance which, as the New York Times puts it, will mean “lives lost to famine, disease and war.”
No, not many of those economically strapped folks were filling the Super Bowl seats. For all its pretentions as a working man’s sport, the Super Bowl is, as always, a platform where the wealthy like to show up and show off.
It’s also a reminder of the ever-expanding gap between America’s haves and have-nots.
Like those advertisers who bought TV spots for this year’s big game. The cost of a 30-second commercial this year: $8 million.
Those are corporations fat enough to spend that kind of money, partly in anticipation that under this president, they’ve got another shot at a tax break, when they’re the ones who need it least of anyone.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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